


The Prison Break

by CanonCannon



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bad Decisions, Bombs, Depression, Drug Use, Drugged Sex, Dubious Consent Due To Marijuana Use, Friends to Lovers, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marijuana, Minor Character Death, Praise Kink, Sexual Assault, Sickfic, Slurs, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2018-08-27 22:27:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 33
Words: 34,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8419618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CanonCannon/pseuds/CanonCannon
Summary: Jesus is taken to the Sanctuary with just the clothes on his back, his bandana, and the paper clips he keeps sewn into the waistband of his pants.It should be enough.--Just a quick FYI for readers: the sexual assault is limited to one skipable chapter, but it is discussed throughout later chapters. Mind the tags and take care of yourselves.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> See the endnotes for details on trigger warnings.

Images and noises flash in Daryl’s mind as he hovers on the edge of consciousness in a cold room.

He wakes up crying and doesn’t know why. He’s asleep again a few minutes later.

It’s like the time he had scarlet fever as a kid, when a case of strep throat had gone untreated for weeks because admitting he felt sick meant staying home from school, and staying home meant being within swinging distance of his daddy. That had ended with having his tonsils out and a brief stay in the hospital, once Merle finally came around on a weekend and noticed that his baby brother physically could not get out of bed.

Sleep had given him no choice then, and it isn’t now either. Only the fierce pain in his shoulder can rouse him, and never for long.

In his dreams Negan's bat brutally smashing into Glenn’s skull replays again and again.

_My fault._

No matter how solid a presence he’d seemed in Daryl’s ragtag family, Glenn turned out to be as fragile and breakable as anyone else.

_My fault._

Sometimes the fever is a little kinder: Daryl dreams of his mama’s fried chicken dinners, sneaking into some bar with Merle when he was 17, playing with Lil’ Asskicker in the prison. That last one sticks in his mind like glue in those hazy hours. He relives the clean, stunned pride he’d felt when Rick asked him to babysit so casually. Just a quick “Can you take her for a couple hours?” in exactly the same tone he’d have with Carol or Beth. No hesitation, no doubt. Like trusting Daryl wasn’t even difficult.

Daryl wakes up knowing that that’s all over. They’ll hate him now. He can’t fathom any other response to what he’s done.

Thinking of Judith reminds him of Maggie’s unborn child, and he has to lean over to vomit onto the moldy carpeted floor.

_My fault._

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heavy on the dialogue.

Jesus is quiet for most of the impromptu war council with the Alexandrians. He’s feeling desperately sorry for them and he’s genuinely worried for their grumpy hunter. He quite likes Daryl, but that doesn’t stop him from sharply analyzing every word of Rick’s impassioned plea for help.

Maggie’s asleep up in his room; he’d offered it after Dr. Carson confirmed that she and the baby were out of danger. The rest of Rick’s group is gathered in the luxurious library, looking starkly out of place in their bloody clothes. At least Gregory had had the sense not to ask them to clean up this time. The gray-haired man had tried to kick everyone out besides himself and Rick. When Rick insisted that his whole group was staying, Jesus had quietly rounded up the major players at Hilltop: Alex and Dr. Carson, once they were done treating Maggie, plus two former soldiers and a resident gun nut/munitions expert.

The Saviors had always mocked the people of Hilltop as gutless sheep, and for the most part they may have even been right. Negan had seriously misjudged Rick’s people, though. Every single one of them, right down to the kid, is dangerous beyond measure. Even in the midst of their shock and grief, within hours of burying their dead in Hilltop’s makeshift cemetery, they had devised a chilling plan that would never have occurred to Jesus in a million years. It was brutal, it was vicious, and it might even work.

The other community’s brutality scares Jesus a bit, truth be told, and he spares a moment to think what could happen if they ever decided turn on Hilltop. But it’s a problem for another day, assuming any of them survive that long.

At least Rick’s little band of murderers balance their viciousness with fierce loyalty. Case in point: not a single member of the group would even consider starting their attack on the Sanctuary with Daryl still a hostage. So far they only have two ideas of how to free him, neither good. They can go in guns blazing with a rescue team before implementing their plan to wipe the Sanctuary off the face of the earth, or they can rely on their new inside man to get him out.

Problem is, none of them trust this Dwight guy. Sometime during the Alexandrians’ hellish encounter with Negan the previous evening, Dwight had slipped a note to Michonne with a brief message: “On your side. Hostage will be taken tnt then tmrw from Hilltop. Will try to help. Dwight.” The blond man had reason to hate Negan, but he’d also killed the Alexandrians’ doctor, shot Daryl, and taken part in their horrifying nightmare just hours earlier.

Rick lists each offense like he’s judge, jury, and future executioner. He’s obviously leaning hard towards a rescue team.

Gregory, unmitigated ass that he is, jumps into a speech about prioritizing the greater good. Jesus tunes him out with practiced ease, watching Rick’s eyes instead.

But then Alex, in his usual halting manner, also speaks up against trying to rescue the captured man. “I know we don’t want to believe it, but he might- might already have been- he might not be alive anymore. Should we really risk the lives of more people for someone who maybe can’t come back with them?” At least he cringes as he says it. “I haven’t met Daryl, but I bet he’s resourceful, right? Smart? I mean he has to be, to have survived this long. Even if Dwight doesn’t help him, the chaos could give him a chance to free himself.”

Michonne isn’t having it. “He’s been shot. He could barely kneel without falling over.” Alex physically recoils from the heat in her voice.

“And what if they’ve chopped off a limb, huh? Think he’d still have a chance then?” Rick asks harshly.

Carl, standing near his dad, shivers, and Jesus wonders why on earth Rick is allowing his son to stay in the room while they’re plotting a massacre.

“No,” the boy puts in abruptly, “No, we can’t…” The kid had seemed disconcertingly, creepily fine earlier, but now it’s obvious that some emotion is bubbling up in that broken little psyche. Turning his single solemn eye around the room, he asks, “But Dad, if the rescue team is captured they could be tortured into talking, and then we’ve lost more fighters _and_ Negan knows we’re coming.”

It’s a good point, actually. Maybe planning battles is exactly where Rick Jr. belongs.

“I will not authorize my men to sneak in and out of a heavily guarded compound, putting our plans in jeopardy and risking imprisonment, injury, and death, all to rescue your pet savage,” Gregory says, looking down his nose at them all.

 _Fuck’s sake._ Jesus tenses, prepared to save his moronic leader’s life if necessary.

In a massive stroke of luck for Gregory, Rick doesn’t appear to object to Daryl’s new nickname. “We’ll handle it on our own just fine, so long as we send in the right people. All we need from you is to delay…”

But Jesus is no longer paying attention, because the obvious answer to their dilemma had occurred to him the moment their deranged ally mentioned “the right people.” The scout takes a second to think about it. It’s dangerous, obviously, but it’s also the right thing to do.

He waits for a pause in conversation to bring it up to the group. At least four more people have started talking at once when he runs out of patience. “I should do it. Just me. I should rescue Daryl.”

There’s a satisfying silence as people gawk at him.

“I forbid it,” spouts Gregory in his most pompous tone, face pinched.

“I make my own decisions, Gregory,” Jesus says. He knows through lots of practice that it’s nearly impossible to look intimidating with his fucking baby face and slight build, but he makes the effort anyway.

Gregory flatly ignores him, addressing Rick instead. “Hilltop can’t spare him, he’s essential to this community’s survival. The supplies alone that he manages to find, the new people he brings in—I won’t give that up.”

Rick’s eyes narrow to shards of cold flint. “You barely know Daryl. Why would you risk your life for him?”

Earl, Hilltop’s blacksmith and a former airman, adds, “It’d be suicide, Jesus. There’s got to be a safer way.”

“My plan is safe. It’s brilliant, actually,” Jesus says, ignoring Gregory’s anger and Earl’s concern alike. “No rescue teams getting tortured, no relying on Dwight, no unnecessary deaths. When the Saviors come to take a hostage, we just have to make sure they take me. That does half the work for me: it gets me in. Then all I’ll have to do is find Daryl and sneak back out.” 

Carl, Sasha, and a few others huff in disbelief. Rick doesn’t, but his expression matches his son’s. “That’s _all_ you gotta do, huh? You’re volunteering to be the hostage of a psychopath.”

“‘Hostage’ implies that I’m actually trapped.”

“Bit cocky,” Aaron murmurs. Alex, who should know better, nods in agreement.

Losing a bit of his usual composure, Jesus rounds on Aaron and snaps, “Look, false modesty would be a waste of time right now. I’m your friend’s best chance of getting out of the Sanctuary alive.”

“You think it’ll be that easy? You find Daryl, mosey on out. How?” Rick says.

“You already know how. Escaping your cell and sneaking into,” just to be an asshole, Jesus holds up a hand, numbering off locations as he speaks, “your armory, your infirmary, your pantry, one of your guard towers, and your fucking bedroom—all of that was easy for me, Rick. Depending on how they try to restrain me, I might even have Daryl out of there tonight.”

He catches Rick and Michonne exchanging a _can you believe this guy_ look and amends, “I know we can’t plan for all contingencies here. If he can’t walk, I’ll have to trust Dwight. And if they’ve already killed Daryl,” Jesus pauses at Rosita’s sharp inhalation, but continues mercilessly, “then at least you know. And if he’s a roamer, then I can try to put him down before I get myself out.”

Quiet follows. Michonne is the first to cave, “If he can actually do it-”

“I can.”

She doesn’t acknowledge his interruption. “I can’t think of a better plan, and the longer they have Daryl the more damage Negan can do to him. Paul, you’re really willing to go in there alone?” she asks, looking at him intently. Jesus nods.

Rick is obviously caving, too. He clenches his bloodshot eyes shut briefly and opens them to gaze earnestly at Jesus. The blood across his face has dried black. “You’ve gotta be sure. No bravado, no exaggeration. I need to know you aren’t biting off more than you can chew. We can’t-“ he breaks off, going hoarse, “we can’t lose him. So you need to be really goddamn sure you don’t need backup, or a distraction, or any other thing that we could do for you that will help you bring him out of there alive.”

Once Rick’s on board the other Alexandrians come around, and it’s not like Gregory can actually stop Jesus. So a plan is formed, rough by necessity. Jesus will volunteer to be the hostage. Different vehicles will come at dawn for the next four mornings to one of Jesus’s hideouts, the closest to the Sanctuary. Alex can show them where it is.

Jesus doesn’t mention that Alex has only been there twice, back when they were together and had desperately wanted a night away from Hilltop’s cramped quarters. Thankfully Jesus had stashed emergency food, water, and some basic medical supplies there in addition to the just-barely-expired condoms and the disgusting strawberry lube Alex favored.

Jesus is turning to say goodbye to his nervous ex-boyfriend when the group hears a shout at the gates. The Saviors have come for their hostage.

“I still don’t understand why you’re doing this. Your friend is right, this could be suicide,” Rick says, shaking Jesus’s hand even as he questions his motivation.

He can’t really think of a response. He’s… fond of Daryl, and he wants to do his part to defeat the Saviors. But Rick deserves the whole truth, and Jesus isn’t out to get himself killed for Daryl Dixon, however attractive he finds the man. “Full disclosure, if shit gets bad and I’m out of options, I’ll save myself. But this can work, Rick. Have some faith.”

Rick just nods—hopefully a sign that he appreciates the honesty. “I understand. And thank you. Take care of yourself in there, too.”

 

—

 

Jesus is taken to the Sanctuary with just the clothes on his back, his bandana, and the paper clips he keeps sewn into the waistband of his pants.

It should be enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus arrives at the Sanctuary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for details on trigger warnings.

****Jesus is as carefully controlled as always when he meets Dwight’s eyes and gives a tiny nod. He keeps his joints loose and pulls a shocked face as the Savior lieutenant snaps, “Nah, take Jesus. He’s the only one of these cunts with any balls.”

Huh. Maybe Dwight really is on their side. Although if the Alexandrians watching from the window of Barrington House can tell that he’s wearing Daryl’s vest, they’re probably going to kill him regardless.

Some broad mouthbreather with a shiny bald head and a dark plaid shirt shoves Jesus to his knees for no fucking reason, since afterwards he just has to lean down himself to slap on the handcuffs. “Aww, don’t you worry, we ain’t gonna hurt you,” Baldy whispers in his ear as he pats him down for weapons.

It’s not reassuring. The man’s breath smells like jerky and chew.

At least the bastard doesn’t find the paper clips.

Dwight gives a sharp whistle and motions the gang back to their truck. A short man in a ludicrously bright green jacket helps Baldy drag Jesus into the cab, shoving him over into the middle seat. Green Jacket climbs in on the right, Dwight takes the wheel, and the rest of the toadies hop in back. They’re all wearing black leather like proper villains; Green Jacket is the only one who didn’t get the memo, apparently.

Jesus keeps his eyes lowered to the faded, dirty gray dashboard, hunching as if in fear and avoiding even glancing in Dwight’s direction. The nod had been risky enough. Now that he’s actually being driven away from Hilltop, he can’t quite remember why he volunteered for this.

 _Lives at stake. Right._ He draws in a deep, shuddery breath, allowing his fear to surface. Jesus needs the Saviors to underestimate him, but he can’t quite manage to fake a sob. Still, he catches Green Jacket rolling his eyes in the window’s reflection as they drive through a patch of scrubby trees.

The ride continues in awkward silence, only broken by occasional chatter from the Saviors’ hand radios. Jesus steals glances out the window as often as he dares. The morons never covered his eyes, and he doesn’t want to remind them.

He knows approximately where the Sanctuary is, but not precisely. Well, he’d thought it was the building the Alexandrians had attacked—even though he’d obviously gotten that horribly wrong, he knows Negan’s actual headquarters must be pretty close. Jesus has scouted the terrain for miles around Hilltop, and that particular area is always swarming with Saviors. He’d learned to avoid it after getting stuck hiding from wandering bullies on too many occasions. The time he’d been trapped in a mucky drainpipe for a day and a half was the last straw.

Finally, after about an hour’s drive, they reach what must be the gates of the Sanctuary. There are roamers staked to posts lining the road, and the scout forces himself to look for Daryl’s face among them. Many obviously turned long ago, but some are fresh. Are these former hostages? Saviors who tried to rebel?

The main building is some kind of rusty old factory, with newish trailers and rickety outbuildings dotting the sparse land between the main building and the wall. There are some platforms with armed guards peering over the solid fence of the compound, but their focus is always outward. Jesus sees no evidence of patrols keeping an eye on the interior of the settlement. Even better, there are plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in.

Security’s looser than he expected; Jesus just hopes this is a sign of Negan’s arrogance and not an anomaly. Maybe they won’t have to rely on Dwight at all, unless some unexpected competence shows itself in the setup of his prison cell.

The truck stops by one of the trailers, and Jesus has to bite his cheek stop himself from smiling. No unexpected competence here. It’s one of the FEMA trailers the Saviors had stolen from Hilltop ages ago. He can pick that lock, break it like a crackerjack toy, or even fit through the ventilation window if he needs to.

Jesus feels himself breathing easier even as Green Jacket hauls him out of the truck by his wrists. The rest of the Saviors walk off towards the main building, but Baldy joins Green Jacket, yanking Jesus towards the trailer by the hair.

It fucking hurts. Alex was always saying he should cut it shorter for this exact reason: long hair gives his opponents something to grab onto. Jesus hates how his ex is always, always right, even when he’s not here to rub it in.

Still, all things considered, he believes his one-man rescue mission is going swimmingly.

He believes it right up until the moment he actually sees Daryl.

The hunter is slumped sweating in one corner with his left wrist chained to one of the built-in bunks. Evidently no one had thought it necessary to restrain him further, and Jesus could see why. The man was no threat in his current state. The trailer smells disgustingly of piss, something moldy, and the fresh vomit on the floor near Daryl’s head.

Baldy leans in to poke at Daryl with the barrel of his own gun. “Still alive, fucker?” Jesus takes a quick assessment from where Green Jacket has him at gunpoint. The redneck doesn’t move, even when the sadistic son of a bitch pushes the gun into his slightly-open mouth, forcing it to stretch. He pushes until Daryl gags and chokes, his blue-gray eyes finally opening blearily as the Savior laughs.

Jesus knows how hyper-vigilant Daryl usually is. Back when the scout was tied up in the improvised cell at Alexandria, he’d had to wait until the Daryl was off watch to escape; the bastard came bursting into the room at the least noise. The guy would have to be seriously ill to have slept through someone sticking the barrel of a gun in his mouth.

“Hey, he bit?” Jesus asks cautiously, addressing Green Jacket.

Baldy answers instead. “Why, you scared, faggot?” Jesus doesn’t react, so Baldy shoves him. The scout lets himself go flying, sprawling on his stomach on the floor, mentally prepared to take a beating if he has to.

Fortunately Green Jacket interrupts. He’s moved towards Daryl, and while he doesn’t exactly sound disgusted—they’re all used to the constant scent of decomposing flesh, after all—he does halt suddenly near the bunk. “He’s pissed himself! Didn’t even lean off the fucking bunk. Boez, for fuck’s sake, Negan wants them alive. How long has this one,” gesturing at Daryl, “been this sick?”

“I ain’t a fucking nurse. He’s only been here since last night, this is the first time I’ve checked on him,” Baldy—Boez—says sullenly.

“Well, go get the doc, tell him to bring shit for a fever and,” Jesus hears a sound that must be tape being peeled away, “Christ, fresh bandages.”

“How come I gotta do it?”

“Quit your bitching and just fucking go! Swear to god, I’m the only fucking adult here.”

Boez went.

Jesus just can’t find Green Jacket as threatening. He looks like he’d been an accountant in the old world. There’s also the fact that while Boez clearly gets off on playing prison guard, Green Jacket seems to be the just-following-orders type. Jesus could work with that.

So he keeps up the helpless act, laying it on a little thick now that Baldy is out of the room. “Listen, I’m sorry I asked. Just please, please don’t let your friend hurt me. I was against trusting this group, they’re a bunch of psychos. Please, I know Hilltop won’t do anything wrong while I’m here, I’m cooperating, we’ve always cooperated—” and on and on Jesus babbles. He clutches one hand to his chest, trying to seem panicky, like he’s hyperventilating.

Green Jacket looks bored, and finally puts them both out of their misery by pistol-whipping him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Homophobic slurs and sexual assault occur in this chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl is not in the best shape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for trigger/possible squick warnings.

The first time Daryl sees him, he knows straight away that he isn’t hallucinating: Paul Rovia, the little prick who calls himself _Jesus_ , really is stumbling towards him with a bucket and rag. He’s never seen the small man so clumsy. Never seen him with a huge bruise forming over his temple.

This is nothing Daryl’s subconscious has cooked up.

His eyes almost fill with tears as he realizes that, thank God, he’s _awake_ again—the quiet murky world he’d been lost in is receding. He tries to remember how to be observant.

“The fuck ya doin’ here?” Daryl asks, words wheezy.

So much for being observant, because a harsh voice startles him from the corner of the cell… well, trailer, not cell. Fuck, he’s tired. “You managed to piss your pants, so princess here is gonna clean you up. No talking.”

Daryl stays obediently quiet, looking covertly towards the Savior in the corner holding a Beretta M9 that’s pointed straight at Rovia’s head. This isn’t the short rabbity prick that handcuffed him in here, it’s the other asshole. Tall, ugly, and enjoying the sight of the handsome Hilltop scout undoing Daryl’s jeans a little too much.

Daryl’s stomach feels queasy. He wills himself not to throw up again and prove once and for all what a little bitch he is.

Still, he feels his face flush as Paul starts unbuttoning his jeans and pulling down his zip, even though he _knows_ this only happened because he’d been unconscious, because he was fucking shot at close range. Paul won’t think he’s a pussy for that.

Probably.

Anyway, fuck what Paul thinks. Don’t matter anyhow, Daryl just needs to focus on getting the hippie thief out of this alive.

Delicate fingers are under his waistband, pulling off his piss-stained boxers and mud-crusted pants together. Apparently his boots had already been removed—when the fuck did that happen? Daryl worries that his brain might be seriously broken, to not have felt a thing like that. He always wakes up when anyone so much as comes near him, ever since he was a little kid.

Suddenly there’s wetness, _cold_ wetness, as his fellow prisoner begins dabbing him clean. Daryl can’t help it, he nearly leaps out of his skin. His ears are burning and it’s not the fever. He ignores the sensation as much as he can, desperate to pretend this isn’t happening even as he senses that Paul is trying to meet his eyes. Daryl scans the rest of the room instead, searching for any advantage. He only has one hand restrained, he could easily break his thumb and escape. He wouldn’t be able to get far, but Paul would have a chance, with his quick feet and ninja moves.

Only he wouldn’t, Paul’s skull would explode and his brains would be in a gruesome pile on the floor, because there’s a gun aimed straight at the back of his head. Daryl is overcome with his own helplessness. Just keeping track of the basics of their situation—Savior, gun, Paul’s blue juniper eyes, the cold damp cloth cleaning his junk—is exhausting him.

“Hurry it up, pretty boy. You think you like that, you just wait till you see what I got for you.”

Daryl fights a fresh wave of nausea. He’s got to get the Hilltop man out of there, but he can’t even _think_ , let alone help. Paul Rovia is just the next person he’s going to get killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um... as Negan would say, pee-pee pants city? I didn't tag this as watersports because in my mind it's so not sexual--gritty, uncomfortable details would just be part of captivity. Sorry if anyone's totally weirded out!
> 
> Again, mind the tags for trigger warnings as well, please.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus makes plans. He and Daryl finally get to talk.

Jesus can see that the simple cleanup is torturous for Daryl no matter how gentle he is, so he doesn’t drag it out. He wishes the other man would at least give some signal of how he’s feeling, though.

Once Daryl’s covered up again, now wearing a pair of baggy, dirty gray sweats, the Savior makes Jesus cuff himself to the opposite bunk. The scout does it properly, not wanting to give the fucker a reason to keep messing with them.

But apparently Baldy doesn't need a reason. Moving slowly, he unfastens the belt from Jesus’s waist and loops it around the scout’s ankles. It’s not a great way to keep someone restrained, but that’s obviously not the point. The Savior looks him up and down and pulls his beard in a mock-flirty way. “Mmm. Don’t you go anywhere.”

Jesus tries to ignore the bolts of fear shooting through him. _He’s just trying to get in your head. Don’t let him._

Boez turns to Daryl next. “And here’s your next dose, doctor’s orders.” Then he’s forcing pills into Daryl’s mouth. The hunter bucks and fights and shakes his head violently, and ends up swallowing them anyway. “Geez, asswipe, it’s fucking penicillin and tylenol. Grow some balls. If Negan decides to kill you you'll have a date with Lucille, he sure as shit ain’t gonna poison you.”

Finally Boez leaves, winking at Jesus and promising to hurry back, the creepy motherfucker. Jesus tries to check if there are any guards posted at the door, but the angle is wrong. It’d be easy enough to get the drop on one guy, but if they’re working in pairs he'd rather climb out of the ventilation window onto the roof, even though it'll take longer.

If at all possible they should make a break for it as soon as it’s dark. Jesus hasn’t been interrogated yet, and while he'd like to think he would keep the group's plans to himself even under torture, obviously he'd rather not test that theory. Maybe the Saviors won’t bother questioning him—after all, they have no way of knowing that their deaths are neatly diagrammed out in his mind—but staying a moment longer than necessary is a risk.

So once the door closes and Boez's footsteps fade, Jesus turns his attention to the trickiest part of the escape: the unwell man beside him. He still looks like hell, pale and heavy-lidded.

“How’re you feeling, Dixon? Anything wrong besides the shoulder?” he asks quietly.

The other man just grunts, helpful as always. Jesus rolls his eyes but doesn’t push yet, trying to be gentle. He knows Daryl is deep in grief.

When the redneck finally does speak a few minutes later, he still doesn’t answer the damn question _._ “Why’re ya here? They catch ya stealin' their shit or somethin’?” His tone is distant, indifferent yet somehow also despairing. It’s the tone people get when they’ve been bit and are just waiting to turn.

“You’re always going to think of me as a thief, aren’t you? I steal _one_ thing from you and I'm labelled forever.” He’s hoping to get some kind of reaction—the subject of the sorghum truck is still a sore spot—but Daryl remains listless. “Anyway, I asked you first, anything wrong besides the shoulder? You're not bit, right?” He can’t quite keep the anxiety out of his voice.

“Nah, m’fine,” Daryl responds. “So if you didn’t steal from ‘em, what happened?”

Jesus decides against telling the feverish man their escape plan for now. Boez could be back any moment, plus if Daryl’s fever takes a turn for the worse the sick man might accidentally blab, and then they’d really be screwed.

“Negan knows Hilltop was involved with the attack on that outpost. He decided to take one of us to keep you company,” he says, sticking to the basics.

The hunter doesn’t react at first, just closes his eyes. Jesus takes the opportunity to examine him. His skin is shiny with sweat and he’s visibly exhausted, but even so, the medicine has clearly helped a lot in the hours since Jesus arrived. He’s lucid, carrying on a conversation (as much as he ever does, anyway), and unless he's lying about other injuries, his legs work just fine. Jesus decides: they’ll take their chances tonight.

“He kill any of your people?” Daryl asks, barely audible.

“No, not this time. He didn’t even come himself, sent a truck full of goons.”

“M’sorry,” Daryl finally meets his eyes. “M’sorry you’re here. I was such a fuckin’ moron, thinkin' we could take ‘em out that easy.”

Jesus is shaking his head before the Alexandrian has finished. “No, nope, don’t do that. This isn’t your fault. We all agreed to that deal. If anything I’m the one who should be sorry, I fucked up thinking the outpost was their main base.”

“Nah, ain’t on you.” There’s a deep, noisy inhalation, then the hunter asks, “D’you know if Maggie and, uh… is Maggie… is the baby…” He can’t seem to finish the question.

“Both fine! I should have led with that, sorry. I didn’t hear most of the details, but Dr. Carson said something about her needing bed rest. He and your group are taking good care of her. They came straight to Hilltop after… after last night.”

“Good,” Daryl says hoarsely, blowing out his breath. He sounds like he’s a step away from breaking down when he adds in a croaking voice, “Can’t believe it’s only been a day.”

 _Holy fucking hell, he's crying,_  Jesus realizes, stunned. He averts his eyes, hurting for the gruff man but guessing Daryl wouldn’t appreciate a pep talk. “Yeah. Hell of a day,” is all he says. Sympathy sneaks into his voice. He can't help it, Daryl is _crying_  for fuck's sake.

Neither says anything for several minutes, giving the hunter a moment to get himself together while Jesus pretends not to hear him sobbing. It must be late in the afternoon by now, approaching dinnertime. It's been quiet the whole day so far, but noise from outside filters in now: movement, shouting, and some laughter.

“Can’t figure it out. How the hell did Negan know Hilltop had anythin’ to do with that attack?” Daryl asks thoughtfully, his voice back under control. Rather than looking at Jesus, he’s gazing at a spiderweb in the corner of trailer.

“No clue. Maybe he connected it to Andy ransoming Craig. Or… I helped that night. Maybe one of the Saviors saw me, recognized me.” It hadn’t occurred to him before, but it’s quite possibly his fault that Hilltop is being punished in the first place. Thank God he volunteered to be the prisoner. If he’d put someone else in this situation… he could hardly bear thinking about it. “Maybe he just suspects us. I mean he didn’t kill anyone. He’s a monster but he has some fucked up little code, it must mean something that they took me instead of just, um, killing someone at Hilltop." He was about to mention Lucille, but stops himself in time.

Daryl frowned. “What do ya reckon Negan’ll do to ‘em if one of us escapes? The bat again or somethin' worse?"

“Let’s talk about it later when there are fewer people around, ok? It’s not like we can do anything until nightfall anyway,” Jesus says, relieved the other man is thinking about getting out. He hopes he imagined that despairing voice earlier.

Just then a group of Saviors passes outside, their quiet conversation about someone named Simon crystal-clear through the thin trailer walls. Fuck, Jesus thinks there’s a child’s voice among them. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that there would likely be children at the Sanctuary? There weren't many kids left in the world these days, but every community had at least a few, and Rick’s plan didn’t include anything so merciful as evacuating innocents. If anyone else in their little council had thought of it, they’d kept quiet. Hell, maybe everyone else in the room realized they would be murdering children and just didn't give a shit.

He can't think about it now, he's got to get Daryl out of the Sanctuary. But he _will_ think about it. Jesus can't help kill a bunch of children. There has to be a way to get them out. 

“Yeah, ok, after dark. Wake me up if ya have to,” Daryl requests, oblivious to Jesus's moral crisis. The hunter's face is turning red again, nose scrunching. It's cute. “And m’sorry ‘bout, uh, before. I been knocked out since they brought me in.”

It honestly takes the scout a moment to figure out what the embarrassed man is talking about. “Don’t apologize for that. That Savior’s a sick bastard—if it hadn’t been cleaning you up, he’d have found another way to screw with us. The whole point was to fuck with our heads.”

“Well it kinda worked. But anyhow, I’m feelin' better so it won’t happen again.”

“Seriously, I don’t care about wiping you down, stop worrying about it. I care about making sure you aren’t going to die on me, ok? You sleep, focus on getting better. Next time don't fight the pills.”

“‘Kay,” Daryl says, eyes drifting closed. He nods off in minutes. Jesus he tries to relax a little as well, not exactly meditating but focusing on slowing his heartbeat and taking deep breaths. Resting now can only help them later when they're tramping through the woods for hours.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus is attacked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains attempted rape and graphic sexual assault. The fic will still make sense if you skip this and move to the aftermath chapter.

****Daryl’s head has sagged and he’s snoring softly when Baldy comes back, carrying two granola bars and two mismatched bottles of water.

“Hey princess, you thirsty? Hungry, maybe?”

“Yeah- um, yes,” Jesus replies, raising his voice in fake uncertainty. God, he hates this cowering dog routine.

“Well I’m awful sorry about that. Thing is, though, at the Sanctuary people work for their meals.” He locks the trailer’s flimsy deadbolt and sets the food and water on a chair by the door. “So… any ideas about how you can earn some supper for you and your buddy, all tied up like that? Maybe something with your pretty mouth, huh?”

One look at his set, cold expression tells Jesus that the Savior isn't bluffing. He feels like he’s been kicked in the chest. It seems sudden, a disgusting attack out of left field, even as he realizes that it isn't sudden at all. He's just been unforgivably stupid, willfully oblivious to what this man wants. The asshole had basically spelled it out for him over the past few hours and he'd dismissed the threats as a tactic. He doesn't even know why, aside from some vague inability to conceive of himself as a victim.

He's a fucking idiot. He experiences a moment of pure incandescent rage at himself, at Baldy, at Negan and the rest of the Saviors.

He can't kill this motherfucker, not yet. It's still at least two hours until it'll be dark enough to escape.

His mouth opens, but Jesus can’t find anything to say. 

He shuts it abruptly when he sees that Boez is staring at his lips, meandering closer to the bunk with a smirk. “Yeah, I think you can earn your keep, right faggot?” When the Savior pulls out his gun and points it him, Jesus sees his window of opportunity to fight slamming shut. He could still get out of the handcuffs or even take the bastard out with just his legs, but not before Boez pulls the trigger.

Frantically trying to think up some clever plan to derail the situation, Jesus glances at the other bunk. The hunter hasn’t even twitched, he’s sleeping so soundly. Jesus finds himself hoping it stays that way. Whatever happens next, he doesn’t want Daryl to witness it. 

Boez sits facing him on the stained blue blanket and begins to fumble open his fly one-handed. Jesus has a wild hope that he’ll shoot his own dick off. “You behave, now. Want to keep you around awhile—I can’t imagine the hillbilly’s had anywhere near as much practice sucking dick, but I’ll give him a try next if you do anything stupid. After I kill you, of course.”

Jesus’s stomach drops in sickening terror and he’s beginning to actually hyperventilate. He's had panic attacks before, ever since he was a kid in the group home, but never anything like this. Time slows down and a haze settles behind his eyes. He’s good at deflection, good at stalling, but he has no idea how to deescalate this. Boez’s thigh is pressed against his ribs and that's all he can focus on. He wants to move, but with his hands cuffed to the bunk and his arms trapped above his head, the best he can do is recoil away, shifting a little. It just gives his attacker space to seat himself more firmly.

The sight of the Boez’s half-hard cock is somehow shocking, despite having seen him unzip. The Savior runs the tip of his gun gently through Jesus’s hair, and Jesus starts trembling.

He’s either going to suck cock or be shot through the skull.

He can't do this.

Gun it is, he decides, head spinning. Fuck escaping, he can't live with this. A head shot is a good way to go: painless, quick, and he won’t come back a roamer. He tenses his legs, figuring he'll at least try to snap the fucker's neck, go out fighting.

But…

But if Jesus dies now then Daryl will follow soon. He's the guy's only real hope. Rick would try to delay the attack on the Sanctuary when they miss the meetings at the safe house, but at some point even he would have to pick the greater good. Hilltop and Alexandria would attack the Sanctuary with Daryl still inside, and the beautiful, stubborn, awkward man would burn to death in this trailer. He’d die horribly, and he’d probably spend his last days on earth being raped by this walking piece of human excrement.

The gun isn’t an option.

He has to let this bastard use his mouth.

Jesus tries to steel himself, but the panic doesn’t recede. Instead it gets worse, clouding out everything else.

 _I have to_ , he thinks over and over again, _no choice_ , _it’s fine, just part of the mission,_ but as Boez pulls his face close by his beard, straining his neck, Jesus can’t clear his head. _Just don’t think about it, get it over with fast. It’s fine. Daryl’ll sleep through it and it will be like it never happened. We’ll break out tonight and I’ll kill this rapist son of a bitch and no one will know. Just like it never happened at all. I’ve done worse things to survive, haven’t I?_

He’s faced death countless times in the past three years and he quickly learned to stay cool and rational when shit gets bad, but it's not working this time. Nothing he tries helps.

This is breaking him. For only the third time since the Turn, tears spring to Jesus's eyes.

Boez likes that, the sick son of a bitch. He smears the tears over Jesus's eyelids and cheeks, then fucking licks them from his cheekbone. The smaller man dry heaves as the Savior begins to stroke himself grotesquely, inches from his face.

“Christ, you’re pretty… you cry all you want, darling, but keep those eyes on me,” the Savior mumbles, “Now open wide and show me what you can do.” When Jesus doesn’t move, Boez presses the gun more firmly into his temple.

Feeling like the air around him has been transformed to a cloud of poisonous gas, Jesus slowly opens his mouth.

The Savior starts to say something else, but the next sound in the trailer is an odd gurgle. Jesus is sprayed across the chest with a warm stream of blood, and he looks up to see Baldy’s throat split open wide, the head halfway severed. When the body drops there’s Daryl Dixon standing in front of him, pale as paper. He’s holding the Savior’s own knife in his right hand and his left hand is a bleeding mess.

They stare at each other for a long moment, chests heaving, before Daryl falls to the ground. He keeps hold of the knife and plunges it into the dead Savior’s temple messily once he’s down. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for some specific warnings/comments.

For a long time Jesus just stares, shock reverberating through him, trying to wrap his head around what just happened. Nothing computes. Finally he wipes his tears away on his shoulder, frantically rubbing the cheek the Savior had licked until it's almost raw. He tries to think of a new plan, to strategize, but his mind is still blanking out right when he needs it most. There’s a dead Savior on the floor, it’s barely dusk outside, they have to make a break for it _right now_ instead of waiting for darkness, and Daryl might topple over before they reach the trailer door. His plan had been rough, but it had been a start at least. Now it’s shot entirely to hell.

He feels a swell of unjustifiable but undeniable wrath over that. “What the hell, Daryl? Seriously, what the hell was that? I was handling it, I was… fuck fuck fuck fuck…” He can’t remember the last time he panicked like this. He’s a mess of emotions and the rage is winning out.

“Handlin’ it, what, by doin’ _that_?” Daryl shouts back a bit hysterically. Apparently his accent gets a lot stronger when he’s upset. “You weren’t fightin’ or nothin’, and he was…” he trails off, obviously not able to say it. Like he’s angry at Jesus, or perhaps disgusted by him. _Of course he is, why wouldn’t he be?_ Jesus realizes. The redneck hasn’t looked at him since he flopped to the ground next to the slain Savior.

Jesus imagines that he can still see a lusty haze in the corpse’s open eyes and the scout’s is trembling again just at the thought. It’s humiliating, this whole thing is humiliating, and all that anger and humiliation pour out of him uncontrollably. “I was handling it by not flying off the handle! Have you always been this rash? How the hell are you even still alive? Escaping was never going to be easy and now, now we are up shit creek, it’s still light outside, and-”

There’s something almost tangibly raw in Daryl’s voice when he snarls, his head still lowered, “I get it, alright? I fucked up again. Sorry I killed your new boyfriend or whatever-”

“Oh _fuck_ you,” Jesus interrupts, and it’s a good thing he’s still in the cuffs or he might actually kill the redneck. “The only reason I’m even in this hellhole is because your psychotic family sent me to break your ignorant ass out of here before they blow the place to smithereens.”

Daryl jerks his head to Jesus, small eyes wide with disbelief and certainly not filled with gratitude. The man is livid, choking on his words, trying to conjure some kind of speech from his outraged brain. “ _What?!_ Why? Why would they- why the fuck would you do that? I don’t want anyone riskin' their skin for me. You don’t even know me! What the fuck were you thinkin’? I ain't worth that!” The redneck at least keeps his voice to a low hiss. Jesus is amazed they haven’t attracted attention yet. He’s pretty sure he was yelling at Daryl a moment ago, but the details are already blurry.

“I was thinking that I’m the only one who could get you out of here, ok? Pretty simple. I know you well enough to like you, and I didn’t want you to die. Still don’t, so if you wouldn’t mind terribly please _shut up_ and let me think. I need to figure out what to do next.”

Daryl does shut up, but after awhile Jesus hears a low sniffle. The man is crying into his hands, obviously trying to hide it. Somehow, Daryl freaking out helps Jesus get control over his own wild thoughts. Clarity is coming back slowly, the panic eroding for the first time since Boez stuck his dick in his face. “Hey, just… calm down, ok? I’m sorry I yelled at you. I know you have had the shittiest and most overwhelming past 24 hours, but you’re ok now, we’re getting you out. And for what it’s worth, thanks for trying to help me. I should have told you about the escape plan right away so you knew why we couldn’t kill him yet. That’s on me.”

Daryl scoffs, “You think I woulda let that happen, even if I'd known? Fuck the escape plan, Paul, this poxy bastard was gonna-”

Jesus cuts him off again. “Yeah, I already figured out what he was going to do, thanks, it was kind of hard to miss. I was going to _let him_ , because we needed to stall for more time so I could get you out of here alive. That’s more important, alright?”

“Nah.”

It’s surprising and a little endearing, but then Daryl has always had a gift for pleasantly surprising Jesus. “Well, it’s done now, and I can’t pretend I’m not grateful. Let’s just hope all of these bastards are as stupid as him.” He rolls his hips up towards his handcuffed hands to retrieve one of the paper clips sewn there, nearly bending himself in half on the bunk. His hands aren’t shaking anymore. The trauma and terror are still there, but he’s managing to put them away for now.

“They really send you? Rick and them?” Daryl asks quietly, hands lowering from his face except for a thumb that somehow gets trapped between his teeth on the way down.

“Yes! You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Who?”

“Who what? Who asked me? All of them,” Jesus gasps out, focusing on getting his hand close to his right pocket and crushing his lungs in the process.

Daryl’s attention is finally caught by Jesus’s contortionist act on the bunk, and he squints at the scout through greasy bangs. “The fuck you tryin’ to do?”

“I’d rather not break my thumb, which reminds me, could you start doing… oh, anything useful? Anything at all? Bandage your hand, get the gun, find the keys, perhaps?” Jesus wriggles his right elbow out as far out as he can with his restrained wrists, grunting, “There’s a couple of paper clips sewn into my pants, I’m trying to get one.”

Daryl snorts. “‘Course there are. Jesus Christ, quit that before you break yourself in half.”

“Ooh, using my full name, now I know you’re angry with me.”

“Nah,” he says, again skipping any context or elaboration. He does move, finally, patting around the body on the floor beside him and pocketing the Savior’s gun and another knife. No joy on the handcuff keys, though.

Now that Jesus is no longer mired in terror, his brain is jumping ahead planning their next moves. “Your hand must hurt like hell, gotta bind it before we try for the wall. We won’t bother hiding the body, there’s too much blood. Anyone who comes in here will know what happened. So long as we get out of the trailer and over the wall before anyone comes looking, I think we still have a chance. Security inside seemed pretty shitty…” A touch to his hip freezes him, though he doesn't flinch. He just stops talking abruptly because Daryl is now patting _him_ down, looking for the tiny bits of metal sewn into his pants.

The scout can’t help but squirm as Daryl accidentally runs one of his big paws over his dick. “Right side, by the pocket!” he huffs, redirecting the redneck’s fingers. It’s a complete mindfuck—his dick is into it because it’s _Daryl_ , and fucking the older man has been a favorite fantasy for weeks, especially since he and Alex broke up.

At the same time, the fact that he's even capable of arousal right now makes him edgy. If Daryl wasn't disgusted by him before, he certainly will be after this. Jesus tries desperately to calm his overwrought, confused body, but it turns out to be impossible. _Down, boy,_ he scolds himself. _You’re going to spook the hick_.

The hick does seem incredibly embarrassed, but he doesn't stop fiddling until he’s pulled out one of the clips. Jesus is free in a jiffy, all business as he yanks his belt from around his ankles and refastens it. He’s blushing and would make some excuse if he could think of anything remotely plausible, but he can't. Besides, they've talked too much already. Everything now depends on them getting out of the Sanctuary before the Saviors notice Baldy’s absence.

“Alright, my aim is rusty so you keep the gun. We’ve got about forty yards before we get to the wall. Breaking out of the ventilation window could attract attention from the upper floors of the main building, so our best bet is walking out the front door. I don’t think they’ve got a guard posted—he’d have heard us yelling at each other like idiots earlier, for one thing. If anyone’s there I’ll drag him inside and snap his neck, and you be ready with the gun just in case. After that, stay close to the buildings and follow my lead. Once we’re over the wall, we’re running. Think you can handle it?” Jesus pockets the bottle of antibiotics from beside the Savior’s body, then pulls his bandana out and ties it over his face. It doesn’t matter if Daryl can handle it, they need to go.

Only Daryl hasn’t moved, except to hold out the gun towards Jesus, his fingers gripping the barrel. “Sorry, but... I ain’t comin' with ya.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Regarding this and the previous chapter, I tried to reflect the self-blame, disgust, and anger that many feel after sexual assault. It's an emotional mess and Paul lashes out irrationally.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus and Daryl have a tense conversation.

“Sorry, what?” Jesus hisses, yanking his bandana back down.

“Take the gun, get yourself outta here.”

“Hell no. No, you- I’m not- I _just_ told you, rescuing you is the only reason I’m even- Ok, I’m going to use small words, and you’re going to tell me where I lost you. We are both getting the hell out of here, right this fucking minute. We can make it, we just need to hurry.” Daryl is motionless, so Jesus tries another tack. “Do you have any idea what Rick’ll do to me if I show my face without you?”

The other man shrugs. “Whole lotta nothin’. You’re wastin’ time, someone could show up lookin’ for this jackass any minute.”

“ _I’m_ wasting time?”

Daryl sighs, for all the world like Jesus is the unreasonable one, and says, “Just… tell my fam- tell Rick and them that I’m sorry. And m’sorry you got dragged into this, ok? You shouldn’t a’ come. You go on, I got somethin’ I gotta do here.”

Jesus is so thoroughly bewildered and pissed off that he barely stops himself from hitting the man in front of him. “You stupid, selfish son of a bitch, do you have any inkling of how they’re feeling right now? They are worried sick about you. Do you seriously not understand what’s running through their heads, worrying about what the Saviors are doing to you? Rick wanted a contingency plan in case you’d had a limb hacked off, for God’s sake. They need you back with them, they’ve lost enough already.”

Daryl says nothing, he doesn’t even grunt, standing there silently like the dumb, hulking animal he is. Jesus thinks he might actually hate the redneck in that moment.

It's a struggle to speak reasonably. “We _all_ want to kill Negan and the rest of these leeching assholes. I’m guessing that’s what you think you’ve ‘gotta do’ before we get out of here? But you aren’t doing it alone with no plan and no backup. Even if by some miracle you did get the drop on him, you’d never get out alive afterwards. Our people have an actual plan, one that will work, and the first step is getting you out of here, so: Move. Your. Ass.”

No response again. They do not have time for this bullshit. Jesus wonders if it would be faster to accept the gun and just _make_ Daryl leave the trailer, but if the man has a death wish then a pistol to his back won’t be much motivation.

Pushing a hand through his hair, which is unpleasantly sweaty despite the coolness of the day, Jesus snaps, “Seriously, how could you do this to your family? You really want Carl, Rick, Aaron—Maggie, who just lost her husband—to have to mourn you, too?”

Finally a reaction, but it’s not one Jesus likes. “They don’t want me back, alright?” Daryl half shouts, his voice harsh. Jesus tries to hush him, gesturing at the thin walls. “They don’t, not really. This way’s better. Tell ‘em I’m makin’ it right. Tell Maggie-”

“You tell her yourself,” Jesus bites out. “They sent me after you, Daryl. And if I hadn’t come it would have been Rick breaking in with a rescue team, risking even more of their lives to save yours. Why would you think they don’t want you?”

But Daryl just turns away from him, facing the wall, his unbroken hand still holding the gun stubbornly back towards Jesus. The scout can’t reason with him when he has no fucking clue what’s going through the other man’s head, and anyway he suspects reason has nothing to do with this.

Time for a new approach, then: bald-faced lying. “Look, I can’t escape by myself, alright? If I’m going to get home alive, I need you out there with me.”

Daryl whips around, glowering suspiciously. “The hell you say. I can’t hardly walk, sure can’t climb no wall…” He trails off, voice thick. He's not crying but he's close.

“I can boost you over, no problem, but from there it’s up to you to get us through the woods. We’ve got to get to a safe house over in Post Oak for the next part of the plan. I know the way there from Hilltop, but I got disoriented when they brought me in and now I don’t think I can find it.” _Please work, please work_ , Jesus pleads silently, giving Daryl honest-to-god puppy eyes.

It works, much faster than Jesus expected. “Fine,” the hunter says on a long, shaky exhale. For someone choosing survival over a suicide mission, he sounds utterly defeated. “Fuckin’ city boy. Fine, I’ll getcha there.”

They still don’t leave for several minutes, despite Jesus’s itchy feet. A couple of Savior women are meandering slowly by; he watches them from behind a musty curtain. At least it’s getting darker outside.

Meanwhile Daryl scrounges up a pencil from Baldy’s pockets. That and a couple of broad strips from the guard’s shirt become a makeshift splint in mere moments, as if binding his own dislocated fingers is a common chore for the older man. He hardly even flinches as he tightens the pencil in place.

Jesus is impressed despite himself. He knows how much that must have hurt.

The Savior women are moving off, and the scout pockets the granola bars and moves to take the water bottles as well. They’ll be walking for hours and Daryl is probably hungry and dehydrated.

The hunter is struggling to lace up his boots over the large sweatpants “We should just down the water now so we ain’t gotta carry it. Those bitches still out there?” he asks.

“Just left. Here, take it.” Jesus hands Daryl the larger of the two bottles, and the Alexandrian is smart enough not to argue. Jesus kneels quickly, tying up the other man’s boots. Leaning over makes him realize his shirt is covered in blood. He strips it off. A good amount has seeped through to his undershirt, but it’s still a little less conspicuous. He looks up to find Daryl’s eyebrows raised, staring at him. “What? It’ll attract less attention.”

Daryl grunts, and it sounds like he’s disagreeing. Jesus glances down at the black sleeveless undershirt, but he can’t find anything wrong with it. Shrugging, he chugs his own water bottle.

They’re finally ready, probably more than half an hour after Daryl killed that son of a bitch. Hopefully they’ll continue to be lucky.

Jesus reaches for the door.

“Wait!” Daryl whispers. “Post Oak is north a’here. In case I don't make it to the wall, you know how to find the North Star?”

“Nope,” Jesus says brightly, and he opens the door, slipping silently out into the evening air. Daryl follows him, cursing quietly.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Escape interrupted.

The keys are in the door, like that sick bastard had forgotten them in his hurry to force a cuffed prisoner to suck his dick. Daryl feels another fierce flash of disgust at the thought. Thankfully Paul seems to be handling himself alright, at least for now—he simply turns the lock and pockets the keys. Maybe shouting at Daryl for the last half hour helped somehow. Until today Daryl’s never seen him show more than passing irritation, like sarcastic jabs are his sole way of blowing off steam.

The sun has started to set but it’s nowhere near dark. They’re practically out in the open, scurrying from trailer to trailer and shed to shed just hoping no one comes by. Daryl can’t help checking over his shoulder every few seconds, and he jumps when there’s a particularly loud noise from the main building. He’s guessing most of the Saviors are at dinner. 

They walk quickly towards the wall, Daryl following as Paul winds his may through tiny shacks and trailers. It reminds Daryl of home, a shitty little trailer park dotted with broken cars, dirty couches and lawn chairs, and falling-down tool sheds. The similarities make his anxiety spike.

They stop a couple of times between buildings to breathe and look around. Well, Daryl breathes, head spinning and hand throbbing in agony, while Paul pokes his shaggy head out around corners. The hunter keeps having to torque his mind to focus on the escape; when it’s not wandering to Maggie and the rest of his family, it’s stuck on the man beside him, wondering if he’s alright.

Well, hell, obviously Paul’s rattled. Anybody would be. But as the scout darts around, light on his toes as always, it sure looks like he’s keeping it together. Daryl tries again to shove his useless unease out of his mind—good lord, Paul was attacked and somehow Daryl’s the one being a pussy about it.

They’re only few yards from the wall, sneaking by an old shed, when they come face-to-face with Dwight at its door. Daryl raises the gun immediately but doesn’t fire; a gunshot inside the Sanctuary would get them caught. With a thrill of satisfaction, he waits for Paul to drag a knife across the dickweed’s throat instead.

“Whoa, whoa,” Dwight’s saying, and Paul… why isn’t Paul killing him already?

Instead the scout whispers, “Anyone else in there?” Dwight shakes his head, and Paul shoves him back through the door. They’re in a dusty tool shed. Daryl follows and closes the door, gun still pointing at Dwight’s ugly, half-melted face.

Paul’s saying “Listen up, we don’t have much-” when Daryl realizes that Dwight’s holding a long piece of metal loosely in his right hand. The hunter immediately loses his shit. Next thing he knows the weapon, some kind of tool, is clanging to the floor and Dwight’s nose is oozing blood in buckets. Paul is dragging Daryl off of the slippery son of a bitch, yammering on about being quiet. Daryl falls back but pulls the gun around, pointing it at the prone man’s head. There’s a bit of blood on the handle—apparently he’d smacked Dwight’s nose and unscarred eye with it. Good.

Suddenly Paul is between Dwight and Daryl, between Dwight and the gun. Daryl’s attack had happened in mere seconds, but now there’s a long moment where Paul just stands still, holding up a flat palm towards the muzzle of the Beretta and not even glancing back at Dwight—like _Daryl’s_ the threat here.

Horror dawns slowly in Daryl’s mind as he processes what Paul had started to say when they closed themselves into the shed. The hunter takes a step back, then another, moving away until his hip jostles a cluttered workbench behind him. He’s pointing the gun between Paul’s sea green eyes.

“How long ya been tellin’ him shit, huh?” Daryl sounds like a hurt little girl but he can't do a thing about it. The feeling of betrayal is staggering somehow, even though he doesn't actually know this 'Jesus' prick that well.

Knows him even less than he'd thought, apparently.

And Paul… he  _laughs_ , the crazy fucker. Not just a small laugh, either. He laughs a lot, a hurricane of laughter with his hand pinching his nose as he tries to stay silent. Daryl and Dwight both stare, neither moving while the scout giggles to himself like a maniac, his tight black tank top stretching across his muscular shoulders.

Watching Rovia's body fold over in quiet hysterics, Daryl wonders if this is some kind of stress reaction to what happened in the trailer. He keeps the gun trained on the laughing man, knowing first-hand how sneaky and quick the bastard can be. Dwight wisely doesn’t move from the ground, probably sensing that Daryl would like nothing more than to kill him.

Finally the scout pulls himself together. “Sorry, just… Christ, I am never saving your life again. Not even joking, Daryl, next time you’re on your own.” He’s still chuckling, like him being a traitor is a giant joke.

Daryl clicks the safety off.

That gets Paul to stop laughing, but he still meets Daryl’s cold glare with a calming smile. “It’s ok, he’s on our side. Dwight’s going to betray Negan.”

“Hell nah,” Daryl barks out instinctively. Because no, not this asshole. Any other Savior, maybe, but not the prick who got the drop on him, took Glenn hostage, fucking _joked_  about killing Denise.

At the same moment Dwight bursts out, “You didn’t think to fucking tell him earlier?”

They all look at each other. Paul says to Daryl with a sigh, wiping his hand across his beard, “I know this doesn’t come naturally to you, but I’m going to need you to trust me. Daryl, I broke in here to save your life, and you, uh, you saved me back there, too. I think we’ve both earned some trust. We’re in this together, and I wouldn’t lie to you. I’m not going to give Dwight any specifics, but he’s got a part to play, and I’m sure you’ve noticed that we’re in a bit of a hurry. We don’t have time for you to second-guess me on this, alright? Please trust me. Please.”

Daryl grimaces. Paul’s got this trick with making his eyes look big and innocent, and right now they’re taking up half the man’s face.

For a moment the hunter is going to refuse, but Paul’s been clever, raising all the right questions in his head. If the smaller man was a spy, why would they have locked him up in that trailer in the first place? Why would Boez have thought it was open season to do such horrible shit to Paul?

The memory of Paul’s face right after the Savior’s body had hit the floor makes Daryl cringe. The little hippie had been terrified. If he was a traitor he would have said something, anything to stop Boez.

“This fucker’s the one that shot me,” Daryl tries, resisting one last time even as he begins to give in.

“In the shoulder! It’s not a big deal,” Dwight says dismissively.

Daryl steps around Paul, swings the gun at Dwight’s right shoulder. “Oh yeah? Ya wanna try it, sunshine?”

Paul moves between them again. The gun is aimed center mass, making Daryl’s own heart speed up unpleasantly. “We. Do not. Have _time_ for this,” the scout grits out. “Daryl, if you’re going to kill us then do it. Otherwise, I’m telling Dwight what he needs to know.” Turning to Dwight, who is cautiously getting off the floor, he begins. “That bastard Negan had guarding us is dead, so we need to move. Someone could find him any second, might have already.”

“You killed Jimmy?”

“Guy named Boez. It’s messy in there.”

"Why couldn't you just wait until I got you out? You knew I was going to help,” Dwight says sullenly.

Daryl wants so badly to shoot him. He still doesn’t trust him, but he’s trying to trust Paul. “Weren’t about to sit tight waitin’ around with that sadistic son of a bitch..." He trails off, glancing edgily at the scout.

“Why not? What did he do?" Dwight asks, one side of his lips pulled tight. Neither man answers, but Paul flushes and his gaze is nailed to the floor. Daryl keeps his eyes and his gun leveled at Dwight.

The blond figures it out. Daryl isn't surprised—pervert like that must have pulled some shit before. The hunter could pick his type out a mile away.

The shit-for-brains Savior in front of him seems shocked, though. "He wouldn't dare, not in the Sanctuary. Negan hates ra-”

Paul cuts him off before he can say the word. “Look, we don't have time for this, we need to get over that wall. Someone could find him any second.”

Daryl studies him, frowning. At some point the smaller man’s right hand began shaking. The hunter figures it’s natural; he remembers how badly the Governor's foul power play had fucked with Maggie's head. Paul’s tough, like her—he’ll be alright eventually, if Daryl can just keep his head in the game long enough to get the scout to Hilltop.

So Daryl shoves it all aside, the guilt and the anger and the self-hatred he feels thinking of Maggie, and refocuses every cell in his body on helping Paul back to his people. It's what Glenn would do.

Daryl will have to find another way to make it right with his friend's wife.

Widow, God damn it. Daryl winces. Maggie’s a widow now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case it seems inconsistent: it's absolutely intentional on my part that Paul says "I wouldn't lie to you" right after telling a very big lie to get Daryl out of the trailer. The ever-wily Paul Rovia ;)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finish their conversation with Dwight.

Dwight clearing his throat drags Jesus into the present after a hideous flashback to his powerlessness on that bunk. He’s got to rein in his thoughts or he’s going to be some roamer's next meal out in the woods.

He can feel Dwight scrutinizing him. Side-eyeing the Savior, Jesus can see that his expression is… apologetic. Pitying. Well, fuck him. Jesus isn’t going to let Daryl shoot him, but if the blond man keeps it up with that face then the scout might take over where the hunter left off on beating it to a pulp.

“I doubt anyone will find him, he’s supposed to guard you until midnight. You should wait here for a few minutes," Dwight says, nodding towards a clock leaning on the workbench. “The shift change on the wall is at 7:00. No one’ll come in here this late, I’m only here cause I thought I might need this,” he points at the pair of bolt cutters Daryl had knocked to the floor, “to break you out. If you go straight down this path you'll be between towers. I'll distract one of the sentries, it won't seem weird, everyone's giving Nordy shit right now... anyway, not important. Point is, get to the green trailer and climb behind it, it's the closest we have to a blind spot."

Jesus nods, thinking hard about what Dwight needs to know about tomorrow. He has a job in mind for the scarred man, but it’s risky—it gives Dwight every opportunity to betray them. Daryl must be able to see that he has something on his mind because the hunter nudges him. “What, Rovia? Spit it out.”

Jesus nods. "How many kids?"

"Kids?" Dwight looks thrown, blinking at them.

"Yeah, kids. How many live here?" Jesus answers impatiently.

"Uh, six? Wait, eight now, one of Negan's wives just had twins. Two of the older ones are at the northern outpost with their uncle. This isn't exactly a kid-friendly place."

Jesus hesitates. He glances at Daryl, subconsciously looking for advice, but of course the hunter hasn’t the foggiest idea where he's going with this. Still, the moment helps somehow. Jesus turns, taking a deep breath. "You need to get them out of here. Tomorrow, at least two hours before sundown. Get them to Hilltop in a bus or something. Can you do that?"

"Are you kidding me? You guys are attacking _now_? We need time to coordinate, we can't half-ass this or Negan kills all of us! Fuck, most of the guys won't even be here tomorrow, they'll be searching the woods and ransacking your towns, hunting your sorry asses."

Jesus nods grimly. "We know. That’s part of the plan. Now answer me: can you get the kids out without raising too much suspicion? Don't pack anything, just come."

“If I do this and you don’t deliver…” Dwight frowns.

Daryl scoffs loudly but otherwise keeps his volatile mouth shut, thank goodness.

“We’ll deliver. Can you do it?” Jesus responds.

"I'll think of a way. I'm a lieutenant, no one's going to question me. I can track so they'll have me in the woods, but it'll be easy to double back. Christ, I hope you know how much I’m trusting you people." He looks at Daryl. "I'd bet anything Negan'll be in Alexandria waiting on you to show up. He's got a real hard on for you.”

The redneck looks incredibly grossed out. Jesus can’t blame him.

Dwight continues, “What’s the plan, anyway? How’re you gonna-”

“You know everything you need to know,” Jesus interrupts with a shake of his head. He's obviously not going to explain the everything to Dwight. “Go distract that guard, it’s almost 7:00.”

Dwight doesn’t move—he looks ready to start whining when Daryl takes a heavy step forward. “Ya heard the man.”

The Savior’s almost out the door when Daryl jerks forward suddenly, holding him back with one last question. "Y'all got dogs here?"

"What, want me to save Fido too?"

Daryl gives him a withering look. "I'm wonderin' if I'll have anythin' smarter than you dumbasses trackin' us."

"I'm not one of _them_ ," the other man seethes. Daryl just rolls his eyes and finally Dwight answers, "No dogs. The other trackers are pretty good, though."

He starts to walk out, but Daryl takes an arm and grabs him back yet again. "You betray us and I'll make ya bleed. I'll take every ounce of pain your people have ever given me and mine and I'll get it out of you, and then I'll let ya turn and watch ya starve to death as a fuckin’ walker. Ya hear me?" The rough lines of his face are deepened by the evening shadows, and there's not a hint of mercy in his voice or posture.

Jesus stares at the hunter like he's sprouted another head. Dwight doesn't look scared, but he does nod. He leaves with two minutes until the shift change.

There's no time to ask if Daryl’s ever considered therapy. Eyes on the clock, they eat their granola bars and Daryl dry swallows more pills, even though it’s definitely too early for another dose. The hunter is pale and seems exhausted already, but it doesn’t matter—they have to get out now.

At 7:02 they duck back into the cold twilight, jogging towards the green trailer.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Through the woods.

Daryl is _heavy_. Jesus has to stretch out his back after boosting the larger man up the wall. The hunter lets out a pained growl as he hauls himself up with a busted hand and a bum shoulder.  Once he hears the other man land, Jesus takes a short run at the trailer and kicks against it, spinning in midair to grasp the top of the fence and pull himself over after Daryl.

The men hit the ground amongst rows and rows of snapping roamers. When he’d arrived Jesus had thought that these macabre scarecrows were at the gate to intimidate newcomers, but apparently they’re everywhere: relatively whole ones chained to rusty cars, torsos mounted on poles, disembodied heads lying the ground.

Would’ve been nice if Dwight had bothered to mention this little obstacle course, the douchebag.

Unprepared as they are, the only reason they aren’t bit right when they land is that the roamers closest to the wall are old, slow, and almost disintegrating. Daryl has stabbed three by the time Jesus scrambles down next to him. They seem to have avoided the immediate attention of any guards. The air doesn’t fill with gunfire, shouts, or that creepy Savior whistle, but the roamers moan and hiss loudly, made restless by the scent of fresh meat.

Together, silently coordinating and watching each other’s backs, Jesus and Daryl cut a rapid path away from the wall towards the woods. Then it’s a flat-out run for the cover of the tree line. Once they’ve reached it, Jesus wheels around and pulls himself fifteen feet up one of the tree trunks to scan the top of the wall. There’s a single guard wandering slowly closer to where they climbed, gun hanging limp from his shoulder as he paces the large platform.

They’ve done it, they've made it out without raising the alarm. They even have a bit of a head start, especially if the guard doesn’t notice the row of inert roamers with fresh knife wounds to their skulls.

Somewhere in Jesus’s chest, a very tight knot begins to relax a little. They have a chance.

Daryl is watching him with an odd expression, so Jesus give him a sunny grin and drops easily from the tree. “See? Easy-peasy. Onward to Post Oak… shall we?” He holds out a hand in invitation, intentionally pointing east. Daryl snorts and stalks north, gun raised at the ready.

 

—

 

They walk at a fast clip, not running but not daring to take breaks to rest, either.

The night is crisp and cold. It’s slower going than Jesus would like, but he doesn’t push the hunter. Daryl is clearly wiped out, though he doesn’t stop moving and he doesn’t complain.

They don’t break the eerie quiet of the forest, not wanting to draw in any of the dead. Daryl directs their path, pausing to obscure their tracks occasionally. He leads them forwards, then backwards, through a large swatch of mud, making sure they match their own footprints as they back up. Later they remove their shoes for twenty minutes and tiptoe down a path as the hunter drags a branch behind them. It’s interesting to watch him work, and Jesus takes mental note of some of Daryl’s techniques.

He kills the roamers they come across, trying to spare Daryl’s healing shoulder and mangled hand.

But Daryl’s clever tricks and killing the occasional roamer aren’t enough to distract him entirely. Obsessively Jesus imagines what would have happened if the older man hadn’t killed their jailer. If Boez had gotten his way… it’s unbearable to think of it, yet Jesus can’t stop himself.

He’d just… given in. Hadn’t even tried to free his hands. Hadn't fought at all.

At the time it felt like he had no choice but to submit. Now he wonders if he’d just been too weak or hysterical to see the options. His mind is full of the redneck’s accusing eyes and the words “You weren’t fighting,” shouted in that strong Georgian drawl.

 

—

 

It’s about two hours since they dashed into the woods before either of them speaks more than a quiet warning or brief instruction. The blood and gunk from slaughtering roamers has grown cold on Jesus’s bare arms. He works to suppress a shiver, but the ever-vigilant hunter notices anyway and grunts questioningly.

"I get cold easily, alright?" Jesus says defensively, bare arms wrapping around himself.

Daryl frowns at him and starts undoing the buttons of his long flannel shirt. He’s bare-chested underneath. “Take this and gimme yours. I might stretch it out some, but mine’s warmer.”

Jesus gapes at him. ”I'm not taking that, you have a fever!"

"Take the damn shirt, m’never cold.”

Jesus just walks onward without responding, wishing he hadn’t whined about the temperature. Daryl thinks he’s some kind of wuss now. The impression of the Alexandrian’s contempt settles as a gnawing, empty sensation in Jesus’s stomach.

The hunter makes a grouchy sort of noise but follows Jesus after a moment or two. He doesn’t offer his shirt again.

 

—

 

They’ve walked several more miles before Daryl, with his eyes on the stars, says, “We’ll be in Post Oak a bit after midnight, if the creek don’t rise.”

“What? What creek? There’s no creek.”

“‘S an expression. Just meant that we’re more’n halfway there, unless somethin’ goes wrong.” His thumb is in his mouth, making it hard to understand him. How he’s still doing that when it's dislocated and swollen, Jesus has no idea.

“Good, that’ll give us a chance to rest up before our people come for us at dawn.” Jesus glances at Daryl, noticing against his will that the man’s face is lovely in the moonlight. “You can tell the time just by looking at sky?”

“Near enough, if I can see the Big Dipper,” Daryl replies distractedly.

They walk a few minutes more before the hunter breaks the silence again. “If you're so sure there ain’t a creek between here and Post Oak, I’m bettin’ ya know the way to that safe house pretty damn well, dontcha?”

Well, fuck. Busted.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus's turn to talk.

Paul doesn’t bother trying to continue the lie. “Please just keep walking and don’t do anything stupid, Dixon. Please. It’s way too late for your spectacularly under-thought assassination bid, anyway.”

“Yeah,” the hunter grunts, shooting the younger man a dirty look. Truth is, he’s not even that annoyed with the bastard. Pain, grief, exhaustion, and confusion are clouding his mind, and covering their tracks through the woods takes every bit of focus he can muster. Paul walks as quietly as Daryl does, but the small man might as well be stringing Christmas lights along behind them for how badly he disturbs the forest floor.

Besides that, sometime after Daryl decided back in that trailer to ‘help’ Paul escape, he’d realized that his desire to stay and kill Negan hadn’t just been for vengeance—it was also fucking cowardice. Surviving the Sanctuary means he’s got to face Maggie and the others, if they can stand to look at him.

Daryl tries to comfort himself with the fact that Rick and the others had sent Paul after him, but he just doesn’t get why they’d bother trying to rescue him after the shit he’d pulled. Negan isn’t the only one who deserves to pay for what happened last night. Glenn—the all-around good guy, the optimist of the apocalypse—had survived everything this world threw at him except for Daryl Dixon’s stupidity.

Hell, the group probably just needed a tracker for some part of their grand plan to destroy the Saviors, or maybe they thought Daryl would spill information about Alexandria to his captors. The idea makes him cringe in shame.

Paul startles him out of his depressing thoughts. "I didn't _want_ that, you know.”

Daryl frowns, glancing over quickly at the younger man with no idea what he’s talking about. Paul isn't looking at him--his eyes are on the darkness ahead of them.

"You called that Savior my boyfriend."

Shit, had he? Christ he's such an asshole. "Didn't mean it. 'Course I know you didn't... 'course I know that.”

"Good. Just because I'm gay doesn't mean..." the younger man trails off.

“Man, I _know_. Never thought different, m’just a bastard. Sorry I said it.” Daryl wonders pointlessly exactly how young the scout actually is. He'd guess thirty, but wouldn't be surprised if he was off by a few years in either direction.

Paul shrugs. "Well, you also killed him so I guess I can forgive you." He's probably trying to make a joke but it comes out odd, the tone all wrong.

"Glad I did. Wish it hadn't been quick." Daryl's not joking in the slightest.

"I'm glad you did, too. Glad you stopped him," Paul says. His voice is still off and he's wiping at his eyes. "Sorry I yelled at you after."

Daryl looks away awkwardly. Seeing the cocky little ninja so shook up is kicking up all kinds of uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. He wishes he'd woken up sooner, gotten out of the cuffs faster. Wishes Paul hadn't put himself at risk in the first place.

The scout stops walking, burying his face in his hands. His shoulders aren't shaking and he's not making any noise but it's still obvious that he's losing it. Not that Daryl blames him. Paul saw him cry twice in about as many hours back at the Sanctuary, and no one had stuck a cock and a gun in his face.

Cautiously, wishing now that he wasn’t so useless at comforting people, Daryl pockets the Berreta and reaches over to clasp the shorter man’s arm.

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> End of the breakdown.

Right up until Daryl’s hand lands on his bicep, Jesus was convinced Daryl was disgusted by him, that the hunter would never look him in the eyes again. Maybe not precisely blaming Jesus, but disgusted nevertheless by his decision not to defend himself. Disgusted that Jesus would have sucked a Savior’s cock just to survive another day.

Something about Daryl's unexpected gesture moves him, and suddenly Jesus is wracked with a glut of tears the likes of which he hasn’t experienced in ages—not since he watched his husband of three months eaten alive in front of him, two months after the Turn.

It’s completely embarrassing and unacceptable, but it’s also completely out of his control.

After several heaving sobs, Jesus starts to pull himself together. He sniffs loudly and tries to keep his voice from trembling long enough to say, “I'm sorry. I don't know why this is affecting me so badly. Usually if I see two guys' dicks in one day, it's a party.” He needs to move on, man up already. They don't have time for this little breakdown.

Daryl somehow manages to look even more uncomfortable, though he still doesn’t pull away. "Ain't gotta apologize. Anybody'd be fucked up after today." The redneck squeezes his arm, then--pleasantly surprising Jesus yet again--pulls him into a brief side hug. It's typically macho and gruff, but it's also the sweetest thing the scout's ever seen him do. "'Sides, those dicks belonged to an ugly redneck and a fuckin' low-life pervert. Don't care how gay ya are, ain't nobody gonna call that a party."

Jesus bursts out laughing, more in surprise than anything. Daryl gives him a stunted half smile.

"Thanks, Dixon. For everything. I owe you."

"Ya don't owe me shit, ya got me out. M'sorry ya almost got, ya know… hurt. I ain't worth that."

“Stop saying that. Of course you are."

Daryl just grunts noncommittally.

The scout tries again to lighten the mood. "Also, and I'm sorry if this offends your super manly, hetero, southerner sensibilities, but it really has to be said: you're the furthest thing from ugly. It's hard to believe you don't know that. If you weren't so...  _you_ , I'd accuse you of fishing for compliments."

Daryl’s face goes full deer-in-the-headlights. So much for lightening the mood. Apparently the redneck doesn’t find him amusing.

Then Jesus remembers that he'd gotten hard earlier when Daryl was searching him for the paper clips. Shit. It seems like a lifetime ago to the scout, but it was probably a bit more memorable to the straight guy who'd been up close and personal with his importuning cock.

Whoops.

Sure enough, Daryl is flushed to his ears and stuttering. “Th- thanks. Ready to move?"

"Yeah," Jesus says, pulling in a deep breath. "Yeah, let's go."

 

—

 

They've been walking for almost thirty minutes when Daryl says, “M’actually... um. I ain't actually what ya called, uh, ‘hetero.’”

Jesus trips over thin air.

Daryl Dixon, always surprising him.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The escape is going smoothly, until it isn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for a potential trigger warning.

When they finally reach the one-horse town of Post Oak almost two hours later, Daryl still hasn’t figured out what the hell prompted his stupid-ass confession. Compassion, maybe, or something like it, combined with fever—but there’s some other unnameable factor mixed in, too.

Paul had just seemed so withdrawn and cautious, acting like Daryl was a trap ready to spring. The quality of the silence between them changed from tactical to tense immediately after the scout’s compliment, and Daryl knew he probably came across as the type of guy who would beat the shit out of a gay dude for hitting on him.

Not that Paul had been hitting on him, it was just one silly little compliment. Probably a white lie, actually. Paul is forever trying too hard to be _nice_.

Daryl still blushes thinking about it, though, and studies the man in front of him. They’re sneaking past the main road behind some buildings and he can’t even see the scout, just his silhouette when he turns to make sure Daryl is following.

The hunter's mind catches on the bristly beard and long, soft-looking hair.

It distracts him just enough that he doesn’t notice the person stepping out of the shadows right behind him until he hears a voice. “Hands over your head. Don’t move.”

Fuck.

Daryl had tucked the gun down the waist of his jeans while they prowled through the streets, thinking he’d need to use his knife to help Paul with any lingering walkers.

He drops the knife and spins around, hands raised high, trying to lift his shirt enough to show Paul where the gun is. Maybe he could grab it.

His injured hand hurts even worse up in the air like this.

The mystery person steps into the moonlight, and it’s a fucking kid who got the drop on them. Well, a teenager—older than Carl but not by much, tall and pimply, with dark brown skin and dark curls cropped short to his head. His hands are steady on an old rifle. Daryl notices with relief that he doesn’t have a radio on him. Maybe he isn’t even one of the Saviors chasing them, maybe he’s just some traveller stumbling into their escape.

But then the teen says, “They said you were going east. Fucking Dwight, don’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. On your knees, now.”

“Shit. Suppose this is the northern outpost, huh?” Daryl says, hoping to stall but not sure how. It’s so dark behind the buildings, he’s not even sure the kid can see Paul, let alone whether Paul can see the gun that's cold against the small of his back.

“How the fuck you know that?”

“You assholes ain’t as smart as ya think. We’ve known about the outposts for a week.”

The kid scowls, gesturing with the gun. “Yeah, whatever. Negan’ll get it out of you. Get on your knees, motherfucker. You, too—god damn, they weren’t kidding, you look like you done walked off a stained glass window or some shit.”

That answered that, then. Paul hadn’t managed his trick of melting away into the darkness.

Somewhere down the block, Daryl hears muted growling and hissing, maybe a hundred feet away. “There’s a walker comin’, kid. Let us kill it real quick, yeah? Ya know your boss wants us alive.” Daryl has no idea if that was true or not, but the young Savior hasn’t shot them yet. Must be a reason.

“He wants _you_ alive. Don’t care about the Messiah back there.”

Several things happen at once. Daryl drops to his knees, the threat against Paul enough to make him cooperate for now. Paul, on the other hand, springs into action, and before Daryl can blink he’s knocked the rifle to the ground and is fighting for a machete, which the boy had yanked out of his belt with surprisingly quick reflexes.

Daryl scrambles up and launches himself forward, knowing that a gunshot would end this fight only to start a worse one by calling an unknown number of Saviors down on them.

The kid thrusts his machete wildly towards Paul's chest, slashing his arm as the scout darts aside. Daryl suspects Paul is trying not to hurt the boy, which is nice and all, except- except-

Daryl isn’t usually a strategist, he has Rick for that. But when push comes to shove he can handle shit on his own.

They can’t take the kid hostage, however much Paul wants to be the good guy—his unexplained absence could draw even more Saviors to Post Oak, where their people are supposed to meet them at dawn.

But they can’t outright kill him, either—his death would have the exact same consequences, whether they hide the body or not. If anything a dead body would probably be taken as proof he and Paul had come that direction.

Either way, it's putting his people in danger, Paul especially. Paul, who has already been through so much trying to get Daryl free from these Savior assholes.

Holding the kid’s arms out while Paul wrenches the machete from his hand, Daryl comes to a solution. And once he does, he sees no point in delaying.

Taking a page from Rick Grimes’ book, he leans in and bites the boy’s throat out.

While the teenaged Savior is dying, blood gushing from the grotesque wound, the hunter rushes over to a nearby planter and tosses his cookies, with a grisly side of blood, skin, and sinew. He immediately turns over the dirt with his uninjured hand, hiding the evidence from the casual observer by shifting some dead leaves around afterwards. He’d be able to tell the planter had been disturbed recently, but he doubts some fucking dumbass Saviors are going to look that closely.

Hands braced lightly on his knees, chest heaving, sweat trickling into his eyes, he turns his head to check on Paul. The scout is frozen in place, machete in hand, staring at him with his jaw practically on the floor. Daryl feels his conscience prickling something fierce and thinks, _Yeah, well, suppose havin' the spittin’ image of the fuckin’ Son of God look at ya with horror in his eyes will do that_.

But Daryl doesn’t care what Jesus thinks of him, either the deity or the judgy bastard in front of him.

He doesn’t. He can’t afford to.

The older man wipes his mouth with his sleeve, remembering clearly how scary Rick had looked when he’d chewed through that Claimer.

“Go kill the walker. Stab it a couple a’times with the machete… make it messy. Like the kid got bit just before he killed it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daryl kills a teenaged Savior by chewing his throat out, a la Rick Grimes. It falls within the realm of canon-typical violence, but it's definitely on the more extreme side of that spectrum.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus tries to figure out what the hell just happened, then the great escape continues.

Jesus had suspected that Rick’s people were a horror show waiting to happen, but this was… this was beyond pale.

“Daryl,” he says sharply, and he has to pause to gather himself after just that single word. He tries again, “Daryl, you- you just- he’s a fucking kid. A _kid_.”

“He was, yeah. But our people are comin’ at dawn, ya said, and any other way this went down, they’d a’ been drivin’ into a shitstorm of Saviors.” The hunter pushes himself upright, still looking a bit nauseated. “I don’t like it either, alright? I fuckin’ hate it. But I’m gettin’ ya back to your people, whatever it takes, and I ain’t lettin’ my people walk into danger neither.”

The roamer is nearly on them. It had once been a large bearded man in overalls. Despite the threat, Jesus still can’t move, so Daryl gently grabs the machete from his loose grip and takes the creature down. He stabs it first through the chest then slashes at one of the decrepit arms before finally finishing it with an awkward thrust through the ear up into the brain. He leaves the weapon lodged there and drags the roamer over on top of the boy.

The boy who is laying on the ground with a hole in his throat and no blood in his veins. The boy whose blood is all over Daryl’s face and torso.

“Ok, you had to kill him, but _that_? Tearing his throat out with your _teeth_? That was brutal, that was-” Gregory’s term for Daryl passes through his mind, and Jesus adds, “That was savage.”

Daryl looks away, talking to the ground as he snaps, “Yeah? I got news for ya, whatever y’all have planned, tomorrow’s gonna be a lot more _savage_ than this. Best sack up, Jesus,” he sneers the nickname, “and ya best _shut_ up, too. Could be more a’them around, the Saviors or the walkers.”

It only takes a moment longer for Daryl to arrange the scene to his liking. He finishes just as the teenaged Savior begins to turn. The hunter faces Jesus, clearly intending to leave the boy trapped under the other roamer. “To the safe house now, alright? Someone’ll be lookin’ for him soon. Careful not to step in any blood.” He still can’t quite look Jesus in the eye.

Jesus stares at him, then down at the hissing roamer, then back at Daryl. He moves almost by instinct to put the thing down, reaching for his knife—only Daryl steps in his way. “Stop… it has to be this way, Paul. I’m sorry, I know ya- I know how ya feel. But they gotta find him like this, they gotta blame the walker and no one else.” He sighs, looking truly tormented for a moment before hardening his features. “Do ya understand?”

And Jesus does, suddenly. He’s still queasy and sweaty just from watching it happen, but he _sees_. A suspicious absence would have been like shooting up a flare, inviting all available Saviors to come search Post Oak for their missing prisoners—hell, Daryl doesn’t realize it, but that would have ruined a big part of the Alexandrians’ entire attack plan in one fell swoop.

Daryl may have just saved the whole damn war.

So Jesus nods, unsure if the larger man even sees the gesture, and forces himself to move. He walks as if in a trance. It’s not just the boy Savior left growling and grasping; now that they’re almost safe, the whole fucking night catches up to him.

He’s not being nearly as sneaky or as quiet as he should be, but thankfully, they still make it alright.

The safe house is a bomb shelter under a garden shed near a small bed and breakfast at the edge of town. Even if the Saviors manage to track them, he doubts they’d find the entrance to the bunker—he only found it because the previous tenants had left the trap door open when they left. They’d been some kind of survivalists, and they’d left behind a lot of useful stuff that Jesus had mostly carted off to Hilltop months ago. But there’s still a large bed, a chemical toilet, decent soundproofing, and three tiny keyhole-sized peepholes to keep an eye on things above.

Jesus also stocked the place with his own supplies when he decided to bring Alex there, a move he rather regrets once he and Daryl climb in.

Leftovers from their last self-indulgent weekend include a ziplock bag of dried fruit, four packs of ramen, several gallons of water, a battery-operated hotpot, a few candles, and a box of matches. The tiny washroom is also stocked with the soap, washcloths, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and wash basin that his own love of cleanliness demands. Jesus had left these here semi-purposefully after the massive break-up, figuring that it was good to leave some food and supplies at a safe house.

The food and supplies aren’t the problem—they’ll be extremely helpful, actually, since Daryl is probably still famished and definitely still dripping in blood.

No, the problem is that the shelter also contains every item he and Alex liked to use to exhaust themselves together in bed: a bottle of wine, some weed in a baggie next to it, condoms, lubricant, a feather teaser, plus a butt plug and a cock ring. Jesus hopes to God the redneck doesn’t know what those last two are used for.

There’d been no reason to expect visitors, so it’s all just sitting out in the open on the shelves that line the tiny room. Daryl’s eyes promptly land on the butt plug, illuminated in the dim light from the open trap door.

Wonderful.

Jesus tries to convince himself that he’s too jittery and fucked up over the whole shitty day to care what Daryl's thinking. Stepping out from under the trap door, the younger man blatantly ignores the elephant in the room and moves to ensure the peepholes are blocked, then lights a candle and seals them in. “Drink some water and take more antibiotics, then wash up,” he directs Daryl, lighting a couple more candles. He half expects a fight, but the hunter just flips him off lazily before reaching for one of the larger jugs of water and walking towards the washroom.

Jesus pulls out a change of Alex’s old clothes, which will be a little baggy on Daryl but are infinitely preferable to the bloodstained mess he’s currently wearing. While he’s at it he pulls out something clean for himself—after the Sanctuary and the disgusting throat-chomping, he thinks he’d quite like to set fire to both of their current outfits.

The door to the washroom is still open so Jesus drops the spare clothes inside and watches for a moment while Daryl scrubs his teeth violently with Alex’s toothbrush. There’s blood in the foam when he spits into the chemical toilet—Jesus isn’t sure if it’s from his gums or leftover from biting through a kid’s neck. Christ on a fucking ferris wheel.

Turning sharply, Jesus stalks across the tiny room and impulsively yanks the little sandwich baggie of weed from the shelf. There are a few joints already rolled inside, plus more papers and a good amount of relatively fresh buds from a little crop he’d found out in the woods.

Jesus knows he’s being reckless yet he can’t bring himself to care. His skin has been crawling since Boez came near him and if anything he’s even more agitated now. The scout grabs a match and lights up. He immediately takes a huge drag, holding it in his lungs for as long as he can before exhaling noisily.

The high would wear off before the troops came for them at dawn and anyway, it’s not like he would have been able to sleep in the few remaining hours of the night.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl cleans up.

Daryl allows himself a silent five-minute breakdown in the washroom, then takes a quick, cold towel bath. He has to clumsily use one hand to swish soap suds through his matted mess of hair, then he dunks his head under completely before scrubbing his face raw.

He doesn’t allow the second breakdown but it happens without his permission. It starts because he thinks he can still taste the kid’s blood in his mouth. When he looks in the mirror it turns out he’s just bitten the inside of his cheek too hard, but the knowledge doesn’t help. His stomach aches all over again. He feels like he’s back by that fucking R.V., maybe like he never left, only this time the dead Savior kid’s body is cooling next to Glenn’s mangled remains and Rick is bawling…

But it wasn’t Carl. It _wasn’t_. Carl is safe back at Hilltop with an intact windpipe.

After the second breakdown Daryl is just empty, almost catatonic. He’s sitting naked on the floor, arms around his knees. There’s a numbing sensation spreading from his core outward and he’s grateful for it. He manages to put on the white tee and baggy khakis Paul brought him and wrap his dislocated thumb, calming even further from the pain of it.

Stepping out of the bathroom, two things hit him at once: a cloud of skunky smoke, plus the realization that Paul got his arm slashed by a machete and Daryl had forgotten all about it in his hurry to clean himself up. He has no idea how long he’s been hogging the bathroom but considering the state Paul’s gotten himself into in his absence, Daryl must have been in there awhile.

The scout is sitting on the bed, legs kicked out in front of him and his head tilted back against the wall, smoking a roach like it’s his damn job. It’s stupid, maybe the first stupid thing Daryl’s ever seen the other man do.

“Ya too stoned to bandage that cut?”

The younger man blows out a breath of smoke and shakes his head, gaze a little vacant and movements slow. Daryl can’t help but snort. Paul’s usually vibrating with energy and strength, but now he’s… loose. Unguarded. It sets off a strange spark low in the hunter’s gut, half anger and half something new and unfamiliar. Daryl knows Rovia is some kind of blackbelt, but for now the smaller man is not in any fit state to defend himself.

It makes Daryl want to do… _something_ for him. He’s not sure what.

Bandage that cut, for starters. “Get over here. I’ll do it.”

“I can do it,” Paul says, finally standing. Without asking permission, Daryl snags the joint from his small, newly-uncoordinated hands and snuffs it out against one of the wooden shelves. The stoned man scrunches his face a bit but doesn’t object, just grumbles, “Let me wash up first. You take your temperature, there’s a thermometer in the first aid kit.”

Paul emerges much more quickly than Daryl did, wearing a pair of baggy blue jersey shorts and a heavy gray sweatshirt that has “NYU” emblazoned across the front. Like Daryl, he has sopping wet hair dripping onto his shoulders.

The hunter has laid out disinfectant and a bandage on the bed, but instead of sitting the little pothead walks straight back to the baggie of weed sitting by his treasure trove of sex toys. Daryl blushes every time he even glances that direction, so his gaze is stuck on the ground when he warns, “Paul… ain’t a good idea.”

“It’ll wear off by dawn,” the smaller man says, shrugging as he lights up again. He inhales deeply, coughing a bit before he adds, “Not like either of us is going to sleep after today, right? Also, I fucking deserve it… and come to think of it, you do too.” He holds out the joint. “C’mon, this one’s a splif. You smoke cigs, right?”

God that’s tempting, but… “Nah, it’s all yours. Fuckin’ hippie. I’ll keep watch.”

“Daryl, we’re safe here. It’s good. Soundproof so long as we don’t throw a dance party, and there’s no way someone’s gonna find that trap door. And I know you’re in pain—no, shut up, I _know_ you are—and this is all the pain relief we’ve got besides expired tylenol. And also…” Paul pauses, looking vulnerable for a split second. “Let’s just not think for awhile, ok? Let’s just… let’s pretend we’ve never had to kill anyone, or watch anyone turn, or…” He trails off, then brings the joint to his mouth again, sucking at it a little desperately.

Daryl covers his face with his hands. He shouldn’t. He really, really shouldn’t. One of them needs to have a clear head.

When he lowers his arms Paul is rubbing at his haunted, reddened eyes.

Sighing, Daryl holds out his hand for the splif.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A splif is a joint made with both weed and tobacco.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stoned bonding.

Everything is peaceful. Fuzzy. Daryl and Paul sit sprawled on the bed, shoulder to shoulder against the wall. Daryl had finally bandaged Paul’s arm properly. Paul had made a packet of ramen in the hotpot and forced Daryl to eat half. The chatterbox asks a few random questions: what food did Daryl miss most, when did he learn to shoot a crossbow. Normal shit like that. Nothing to ruin their high.

It’s nice to feel calm for once. Daryl thinks vaguely that Rick needs to try this—loosen up, stop being such a control freak.

Thinking about Rick hurts, though, knowing how angry the other man must be. Daryl tries to turn his mind to other things. Or better yet, he tries not to think at all.

But then Paul pipes up with another question and this time it’s a definite buzzkill. “Why’d you try to send me away?” Then the smaller man shifts even closer and lowers his head to the hunter’s broad shoulder, like it’s the most normal thing in the fucking world.

The question takes awhile to penetrate Daryl’s hazy consciousness, but the contact sure as hell doesn’t. “What- what're ya doing?” Even to his sluggish mind the answer is obvious: Paul is trying to cuddle. Actually, he just _is_ cuddling, because Daryl hasn’t moved away. He can’t figure out if he wants to or not.

He’s pretty clear on not wanting to talk, though, especially when he understands what Paul asked. “We ain’t thinkin’ about that shit, remember?” he growls, glowering as he takes another hit. The splif is nearly gone.

As usual, Paul isn’t easily deterred. “I’m cold,” he says simply, snuggling even closer. “And it’s been bothering me. Made no sense.”

Daryl winces and shrugs—not really in response, more so trying to get Paul’s beard away from the sensitive skin of his neck—before skipping the other man’s turn. Paul is a whole joint ahead of him, after all.

The scout snatches the cigarette away right after and takes a huge drag, finishing it off (the bastard) and grinding it out against the wall. It leaves a black mark and an acrid smell. After flicking the extinguished butt off into a corner Paul resettles, only this time he wraps his arms firmly around Daryl before resting against him.

Daryl squirms but is ultimately too lazy to shove him off.

“C’mon, I can tell something’s off. Your resting bitch face is worse than usual. Maybe it'll help to talk about it.”

“Won’t.” Despite the nosiness, the hunter might not mind having Paul so close. The contact is good, somehow—warm, yes, but also just _good_.

Now if only the guy would shut the hell up.

“Couldn’t hurt.” Paul rubs his fingers absently against Daryl’s arm for a moment. His gigantic green eyes gaze up into the redneck’s face from his uncomfortably close perch for a second before he tries again, determined prick that he is. “You’re the one who has family waiting for you… so why weren’t you jumping at the chance to get back to them? They’re nice.” He frowns and corrects himself, “I mean not really, they’re terrifying. But still.”

It’s been ages since Daryl even had a beer, and he hasn’t taken any drugs besides pain meds since before the Turn, so it’s possible he’s become something of a lightweight. Whatever the reason, he finds himself blurting out, “They… they might not _be_ family anymore, that’s the thing. I fucked up. Did somethin’ bad, worse than bad… they’re probably gonna kick me out.” Daryl takes a deep, shaking breath. Damn Paul for pushing him on this. “Rather die tryin’ to make things right than end up- end up alone, knowin’ they hate me.”

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much exactly what you'd expect.

Daryl’s wrong and Jesus knows it. The way Rick and the rest of the Alexandrians had talked during their war council, each and every one of them would have risked their lives (and probably murdered any number of innocent people) to ensure Daryl’s safe return.

Without thinking about it, Jesus reaches up and pets Daryl’s damp hair, smoothing it away from his face. “No. No, Daryl. I don’t know what you think you did, but you’re wrong, ok? You’ll see when we get to Hilltop, they’re so worried about you. Rick isn’t going to kick you out.”

“Done it before,” Daryl replies, voice trembling.

Jesus frowns deeply and pauses for a moment, worried Daryl will take his next idea badly, but in the end he can’t help himself. “Even if I’m wrong—and I’m not—but even if I am, you still won’t be alone, alright? I’ve got my own trailer at Hilltop. It’s got a couch, even. I know I’m not family-”

With a wounded sort of noise Daryl rotates, moving his face into the scout’s hair. His body stays in the circle of Jesus’s arms for a few moments, not crying, just hiding. The younger man has time to pet Daryl’s hair another dozen or so times before the man emerges and looks him full in the face.

“How’re you so _good_?” he rasps, brows drawn like he’s suspicious.

Jesus notices through the haze of marijuana that this is an odd moment. They're so close that Daryl's nose accidentally brushes his. He can smell the other man’s breath, a mix of toothpaste and smoke, and feel his forehead pressing briefly against his own as the man shifts in his hold, and then-

Then-

Then Daryl is kissing him.

Quite violently, actually.

Heart suddenly working overtime, the scout kisses back instinctively. Daryl’s chapped lips feel electric. Jesus opens his mouth, seeking more, and soon they’re kissing deeply, Daryl’s tongue swiping into his mouth in long, passionate pulls.

Jesus is already getting turned on. His skin is supercharged, every sensation magnified. Marijuana has always had that effect on him. He stretches into the feeling, mind and body glowing with warmth.

Daryl tries to pull back, muttering, “Fuck, Paul, I… m’sorry, this isn’t…”

That won’t do at all. Jesus takes his turn next, pressing against that tense mouth with his lips. Daryl doesn’t push for more but he doesn’t pull away again, taking what Jesus gives him instead.

This is enough, just this. Comfort, human contact. Jesus needs it; it’s utterly necessary to him.

They continue like that for several minutes, nothing moving besides their mouths.

Then, glacially slow, Daryl pushes his hips forward. It’s probably subconscious. He’s awkwardly perched with nothing for his body to rub against, but Jesus glances down at the motion and his mouth quickly fills with saliva. Daryl is _hard_. Verging on diamond-cutting territory.

Just like that, comfort and human contact aren’t enough at all. Adrenaline surges through the scout’s body, chased immediately by a conflagration of arousal.

Stoned as he is, as they both are, Jesus knows this is a terrible idea. His head isn’t in the best place. Daryl’s can’t be, either.

On the other hand, if Rick’s plan goes wrong, they and everyone they know could be dead tomorrow.

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stoned, emotional, and making bad decisions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: dubious consent due to drug use. More details in the endnotes. Please DO NOT read if you're sensitive to such things. You can skip to the last four paragraphs without missing so much as a sentence of actual plot.

From the moment he sees that Daryl is tenting Alex’s old pants Jesus is on a mission to get into those sagging khakis, even if he doesn’t exactly admit to himself at first that that’s what he’s after. He knows he wants more of Daryl, more slow, seductive kisses, and a _lot_ more warm pleasure.

He wants it far too much to risk questioning it, beyond considering whether Daryl is _too_ stoned. But no, they’d only shared one little spliff, and the older man’s fever was gone now. Daryl’s very relaxed and moving slower than usual, but he knows what he’s doing.

Jesus knows what he’s doing, too. Hoping to escalate things, he threads his fingers into Daryl’s damp hair and pulls to one side so he can lick and suck at the hunter’s neck. He does it gently and carefully, and is rewarded by a confused moan that seems to startle the redneck as much as Jesus.

Goddamn gorgeous.

Fleetingly Jesus wonders exactly how screwed up he is in the head, to desire someone so badly when he’d been threatened with force mere hours earlier. He ought to… well, he doesn’t know how he ought to be reacting, but definitely not like this. For now he simply wants the whole event removed, taken off of his mind, locked out like roamers stumbling against Hilltop's gates. The pot humming through his body is helping, but this is going to be even better. Kissing Daryl feels like the perfect escape; it’s cleansing, safe, and arousing all at the same time.

The older man whimpers out a soft “Oh!” when Jesus nibbles on his lower lip and any remaining red flags simply vanish into a cloud of herb-scented smoke.

Pulling Daryl horizontal, Jesus is thrilled when the hunter stretches out next to him on the mattress. Christ, weed makes Jesus entirely too horny and Daryl is so damn sweet like this, his shy eyes and blushing face betrayed by his not-at-all-shy dick and eager tongue. Having the older man whimpering and willing beside him is dangerous; Jesus is close to losing his self control just from the innocent looks of surprise and soft, plush kisses.

And yet the redneck isn’t even _trying_ pick up the pace. They kiss with a few inches of space between their bodies. One of Daryl’s hands clenches into Jesus’s sweatshirt at the shoulder and the other, the injured one, rests lightly on the smaller man’s ribcage, so lightly Jesus can barely even feel the pressure. Jesus wants more, craves Daryl’s huge hands all over him, so he rolls them around until he can guides the unbroken one low on his side. He’s hoping Daryl will get the hint and grope his ass, scratch up his back, cop a feel under his shirt—anything.

Daryl doesn’t get the hint. His hand stays exactly where Jesus put it.

Leading by example out of desperation, Jesus runs his own hand from the other man’s shoulder down, thumbing his hard nipple through his shirt before splaying near his zipper, not quite touching anything interesting but tantalizingly close.

Daryl _squeaks_ ; it’s delightful. What comes next isn’t, though. "Paul, we’re- how d’ya know- are ya sure ya want-" he stutters, eyes wide.

“I’m sure I want,” Jesus growls right in Daryl’s face, keeping his mouth close.

Daryl sits up, yanking himself away from Jesus’s lips. “Ok, but… ya thinkin’ straight? Fuck, shouldn’t’ve even kissed ya after- after today.”

“We’re not thinking _at all_ , remember? You’re breaking our rules.” Daryl crosses his arms stubbornly. Jesus sighs. “I’m fine. I was a lot better than fine a few seconds ago, though.”

“Yeah, but after… after what happened, back there, with that asshole…” God, Daryl sure knows how to kill a mood—Jesus just wants to escape that trailer, and now Boez's face is flashing in his mind. “Do ya, um, want to talk about it or somethin’?”

Jesus blinks at him. “ _What_? No! God, no.” Daryl doesn’t respond, so he continues, “Ok, listen. It fucked me up, and I’ll deal with that. Well, maybe. At some point, I’ll, I don’t know, talk to someone.”

“Maggie,” the hunter puts in, inexplicably.

“Sure, ok. Maybe Maggie. But for now… we made it out, and we started a war when we did. I think we deserve the chance to make each other feel good tonight before facing up to all that shit tomorrow.” The hunter still says nothing. Jesus isn’t sure if he’s making any sense; there’s disappointment and a little bit of desperation behind his words. “Please, Daryl, this is- it’s good, and we’re alive _right now_.”

Daryl scratches the back of his neck, peering at him through his hair. “It’s… good? Ya sure?”

Jesus nods frantically. “It’s good. And you’re- you’re _so_ good.”

Daryl’s cock twitches visibly at those last three words and he bites his lip hard. After a second he croaks, “Yeah… yeah, ok. So long as ya tell me if it starts feelin’ bad, ‘kay? I don’t want anythin’ that’s gonna hurt ya.”

“Same,” Jesus nods again, feeling his heart melt and his pants start to tighten again. Back on track. Taking a chance, he strips off his sweater without warning. Daryl looks like he’s swallowed his tongue. “Sorry, I’m overheating in this. Happy to put on a t-shirt if you want.” He’s not overheating, at least not literally.

More hesitation, followed by a low “S’alright.” Daryl licks his lips, clearly not knowing where to look or what to do.

Time to change the dynamic. Jesus gently presses Daryl back down onto the bed, careful of his injured hand. Despite losing the mood briefly, the guy is still adorably dazed, so Jesus has to arrange him until he's laying down on his back, slightly sprawled and gorgeous. Daryl is visibly transfixed by Jesus's bare chest so the scout takes his good hand and places it there, using his own to trap it against the skin. Mouth slightly open, Daryl runs his thumb in a circle in the center of his sternum before raising it to trace his collar bone.

Jesus leans in and kisses him gently once, twice, a third time. Daryl relaxes and unfurls a little more each time. Their legs tangle together. Daryl’s thumb skims Jesus’s neck and the smaller man groans, finally allowing himself to thrust his hips forward, making contact against Daryl’s stomach and grinding shamelessly. “You’re gorgeous,” he breathes, taking hold of that muscled body with both arms and kissing him deeply.

When Jesus moves away, Daryl surges forward and sinks his teeth into the side of the scout's neck, getting a few strands of hair in his mouth. He pulls back almost as quickly, looking somewhat baffled by his own behavior. Jesus’s neck arches at the feeling of teeth and he pulls the larger man on top of him, enjoying the feeling of being covered.

Things spin out of control quickly from there.

Slow, dreamy kisses get faster. Daryl’s bandaged hand stays in one place, weight all on his elbow, and his other hand still isn’t wandering far. When it does, the older man focuses on strangely sweet things: fingers comb through Jesus’s long hair, a palm rests against his temple, a nail traces the shell of his ear. He has to stop the hand trailing through his hair, thinking back to the barrel of a gun moving against his skull.

He recovers quickly, though, pleased when Daryl doesn't seem to realize anything went wrong. Jesus switches their positions, at first caging Daryl with his limbs to provide space between them but soon settling on top of the hunter, bodies pressed together through their clothes.

Daryl likes the new position; he's taking slow, purposeful breaths as Jesus begins to kiss him slowly all over his face, hands running all over his torso over his shirt before pushing boldly underneath, exploring. The hunter makes a noise that is all surrender and has Jesus sit up so he can yank his shirt over his head, falling onto his back again immediately, perfectly in reach for everything Jesus wants to do to him. First thing's first, though: he gently checks Daryl's injured shoulder. It’s looking much better; fortunately it was just a flesh wound. Daryl confirms this by waving his concern away, stroking one of the scout’s lean biceps.

They’re both topless now and Jesus loves the sensation of his skin brushing Daryl’s bare chest and belly. Lining up their hips, he finally feels the delicious friction of Daryl’s dick against his. The khakis are constricting so (after pausing for a jerky nod from the man beneath him) Jesus unbuttons and unzips them, pulling them low over the hunter’s hips. He gets a good look at the outline of Daryl’s heavy, swollen dick in a pair of Alex’s plaid boxers before he kicks off his own jersey shorts, leaving just faded blue boxer-briefs. “Oh, fuck, Daryl,” he gasps. “God, look at you, you're so hard, so good for me.”

It’s an experiment, and boy does it work: at being called “good,” Daryl’s hips thrust up forcefully and continue doing it, like he’s helpless to stop. His face is flushed, breath hot and fast, narrow eyes a bit vacant.

”Hey, breathe love," Jesus says with a reassuring smile, taking control of the pace again. He’ll have to be careful how he deploys that particular weapon.

He licks up the middle of Daryl’s chest, over some light hair, before sucking a mark onto his throat like a possessive high school kid with his first boyfriend. Taking a chance that the other man’s earlier attempt at a love bite was a sign that he likes a little teasing roughness, Jesus closes his teeth over the bruise. The hunter gasps, hips jerking. For a second it seems as if Daryl shot off early, but no, he’s just very close.

Jesus sits up so he can shimmy off his underwear, then he runs a hand over himself, letting his head fall back and groaning in a way that sounds uncalculated and is anything but.

Daryl stares, slack-jawed. He reaches out a trembling hand partway through the air between them, obviously wanting to touch but not quite getting there. Jesus tugs the redneck’s pants and boxers down to his knees, revealing a thick, red, uncut cock and full balls already drawn up in a wild tangle of dark brown hair. Leaning forward, the scout straddles Daryl’s hips, balances himself on his knees and one hand, and takes Daryl's hand in his, moving it to where their lengths are pressed together.

It’s difficult for him to grasp both of them at once, particularly with how thick Daryl’s dick is. Thank goodness Daryl gets the idea and his large hand quickly joins Jesus’s small one. The heads of their cocks press wetly together, spreading precome. Jesus rocks forward and back, twisting his palm. He’s not going to last.

“Needed this, needed _you_ ,” Jesus whispers in the larger man’s ear, making him whimper. Their hands aren’t all that coordinated, smacking together trying to fly over their dicks, but it doesn’t seem like either of them needs much finesse right now. Daryl’s thighs are shaking. ”You’re so hot, wanted you since the start,” Jesus purrs.

The whimpers get louder. Jesus looks down, swiping his hair out of his face impatiently, and takes in the glorious sight below him. The typically stoic hunter is losing all semblance of control over his mouth, his hips, his whole body—Daryl’s arching his back then hunching inwards, shivering and twisting against the dull quilt. He’s going supernova. Fascinated and so, so turned on, Jesus squeezes around Daryl's cock and husks, “I knew that we’d be good together like this. You’re perfect, Daryl, completely perfect.”

As Jesus watches—and thank fuck he is watching this—Daryl whines out something incomprehensible and comes all over their hands, his stomach, and his chest, hips writhing. He comes so hard that a small drop of semen pumps all the way up to the new love bite on his collar.

Leaning in to lap it up, Jesus finishes himself off lightning fast, mouth opening in a silent shout as he adds to the mess covering Daryl’s body.

—

As far as Jesus can tell, Daryl passes out directly after his orgasm. The scout smirks a little as he wipes pools of come from the other man's stomach and chest, then hoists up his boxers, barely managing to pull them up without waking him. Daryl’s pants ended up knotted around his calves so Jesus gently disentangles them.

Jesus can’t find his own boxer-briefs so he wears the jersey shorts without any, settling onto the mattress. A watch he keeps in the bunker tells him that they have about three hours until dawn; he sets its alarm to wake them in two and a half hours. The weed and sex-sleepiness will have worn off by then. They’ll be sleep-deprived but otherwise ready to run or fight when their people come for them.

He allows himself a moment of pride that he’d gotten Daryl out of the Sanctuary so quickly—Rick and Michonne had been skeptical, but he’d done it. Or rather, he and Daryl had done it together.

He knows better than to get introspective now, though, alone in the dark. The past 24 hours have given him precious little to feel proud about and some deeply uncomfortable questions to ponder, starting with: what the fuck is _wrong_ with him? Jesus manages to dodge self-recrimination long enough to drift off to sleep.

—

About half an hour later, the trap door above the sleeping men opens almost silently.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daryl and Paul have sex while both are under the influence of marijuana. In the fic both men believe themselves and each other to be capable of consent, but it's still obviously a gray area. Basically, they're making impulsive decisions together due to trauma. Again, if ANY of this bothers you--stay safe and don't read the chapter <3


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intruder in the bunker.

Clutching the gun under his pillow, heart beating itself against his ribcage, Daryl listens as someone climbs into the bunker hours before they’re expecting their people. The intruder is probably attempting to be quiet, but one of the rungs on the ladder squeaks quite loudly; Daryl had noticed it when he climbed in.

Paul snores softly beside him. God damn it, Daryl _knew_ getting stoned was a shitty idea.

When a flashlight pops on, the hunter leaps up like it was a signal, gun pointing slightly above the light source. Daryl growls, “Ya move and I start-”

“Daryl!”

Daryl would recognize that voice anywhere. “ _Rick_?”

The light and the gun lower at the same time.

Daryl doesn’t want look at his brother. There’s no reason on earth Rick himself should be here fetching them, yet here he is, and Daryl can't think of a damn thing to say. He’d thought he had time to prepare for this meeting, but time’s up and Daryl's still too overcome to face what he's done. Guilt and grief come hurtling back into his gut and the image of Glenn’s crushed skull floods his mind until he feels like he's short-circuiting. The one thing he's sure of is that he won’t beg for forgiveness; he knows he doesn’t deserve it.

When Rick speaks, it’s almost a whisper. “You’re actually here. He got you. He got you out, oh God, Daryl, you’re- you’re safe. Fuck. You’re here.” Next thing Daryl knows, Risk has crossed the room in a bound and yanked him into a crushing hug, squashing the hunter’s face into his neck.

Against his will, Daryl registers a spark of relief. Somehow, Rick doesn’t hate him—that’s all he can process. He’s not being disowned. Nonplused, he pats the other man’s arm, turning his face out of habit so he can keep his eyes on the newly-exposed exit to the room.

It occurs to him that he’s wearing nothing but another man’s boxer shorts and traces of his and Paul’s come smeared across his stomach.

Speaking of which, the little pothead is finally blinking awake. Paul stays quiet but spins the dial of the lantern beside him so the light in the room goes from barely present to a bright glow.

 _Thanks, asshole. Just what this situation needed, more light_ , Daryl thinks, glowering at the scout. He tries to pull away from Rick to at least grab a shirt, but the leader’s hands keep him close, one on his shoulder and one on his bicep.

“Are you ok? Your shoulder? Did they- wait, what did they do to your hand?” Rick stares at him with a watery expression. This level of acceptance and care might just drive Daryl apeshit, trying to understand why the fuck isn’t Rick angry at him. His head feels full of molasses.

“Nah, wasn’t them. I had to dislocate my thumb to escape, and it got bloody pullin’ outta the cuffs. It don’t hurt much, had some pain meds.”

Nodding absently, Rick ducks a little to look straight into Daryl’s eyes. “Yeah, but are you ok- wait, are you _high_?” he asks, incredulous, the second question interrupting the first. He uses a thumb to open one of Daryl’s eyes wider before Daryl can shake him off.

The redneck shrugs with one shoulder. “S’just some pot, man.” He’s embarrassed and doesn’t understand why. Hell, Rick has always known he’s trailer trash, and it’s not like he caught Daryl on meth or something.

Still, Rick’s looking more like a cop than he has in years. Daryl has to force himself not to fidget. The leader scowls and glances downward in thought, still not seeming to care that he’s been holding onto a nearly naked man for at least a solid minute now. Giving Daryl a look that very clearly communicates _We’ll talk about this later_ , he turns to address Paul instead. “Jesus, thank you. I don’t know _how_ you pulled th- oh.”

Rick’s double-take would be funny in other circumstances. Daryl’s cheeks heat, imagining the scene through his friend’s eyes: both he and Paul look stoned and underdressed, the bed they were clearly sharing is a wreck and, well, Rick didn’t spend fifteen years as Deputy Grimes for nothing.

Electric blue eyes dart around, eventually landing on the mark Paul had sucked low onto Daryl’s neck. Rick’s face flushes cherry-red, but he doesn’t recoil like Daryl thought he might. His hand stays glued to the hunter’s bare shoulder. “Oh. Um. Right, then…” Visibly recalibrating, Rick turns back to Paul, keeping his eyes trained on the Hilltop man’s face. “Thank you. Truly. I don’t know how you did this, but I’ll never forget it. Shit, everything went south and I thought we’d have to…”

He hesitates long enough that Paul speaks up. “What, Rick? What’s changed?” Daryl's grateful to see that the smaller man is pulling on a shirt; he steps away from Rick to do the same.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but… Gregory sold us out to the Saviors. We can’t be sure what they know, so it's happening tonight. All of it. So if you hadn’t escaped-”

“Gregory’s a _traitor_?!” Paul’s seems more enraged than surprised, hands balling into fists.

Nodding grimly, Rick continues, “Dwight showed up at Hilltop about two hours ago with a van full of women and children. Told us he heard Negan say he would consult with Gregory about you two and about Alexandria’s vulnerabilities. We don’t think Gregory had time to pass on any information about the plan, but we can’t know for sure--nobody can account for his whereabouts for at least a couple of hours. And we can’t take any chances, not with this, so we have to move now.” Rick sucks in a deep breath, hand dragging down his face. “Almost thought we might have to attack with you two still inside. Hell, we half expected an ambush meeting you here, even.”

“Then why the fuck did you come?” Daryl asks, at the same time Paul says, “But is Eugene ready?”

Rick holds up a hand. “We can talk later. We should move, head back to Hilltop. Get, uh, finish getting dressed and meet us up in the driveway. Alex is keeping watch out by the truck.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rick and Daryl have a talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brief warning for a homophobic slur/internalized homophobia.

There’s only really room for one of them next to Rick in the cab of the small Toyota truck. Alex sits in the bed, eyes and gun facing the road.

Fuck. Rick is like a dog with a bone when he gets it into his head that somebody needs him to jaw at them. Daryl imagines what the other man might say alone with him in that cab—about Paul, about Negan, about _Glenn_ —and slows his steps towards the truck. He glances pleadingly at Paul.

The scout raises an eyebrow, barely visible in the moonlight, and shakes his head. “Sorry, Daryl, you’re on your own. That man,” he jerks his head towards Rick, “just caught me red handed with his brother, and I have this crazy hunch that he might be the protective type. Think I’ll keep my distance.” Then he skips ahead and vaults gracefully into the bed of the truck.

What a bastard. Daryl scowls after the younger man and climbs reluctantly into the cab, trying and failing to get a better look at Paul’s ex-boyfriend as he does. He’s never paid attention to the man before and he doesn’t really get a better look now, either. The dirty window obscures his view, plus Alex keeps his face angled towards the road.

Daryl nearly twists the other way to glance back at Paul, barely catching himself in time. He doesn’t exactly know the protocol here but he’s pretty sure staring would be bad.

Rick puts the truck in gear and they pull away from the inn, driving slowly by moonlight to avoid any unwanted attention. And speaking of unwanted attention, the asshole doesn’t bother pretending like he was ever going to let this be a peaceful ride. “Look, Daryl-”

“Dwight tell ya there’s Saviors in town? Got an outpost, we should be quiet in case-”

“Daryl,” Rick says firmly. “We’ll be ready, we’re all keeping an eye out. But you know I’m not gonna let this go.”

The hunter sighs, dropping his head against the back of his seat. There are at least five things Rick might want to gab about and Daryl would rather peel off his own skin than discuss any of them. “I’m goin’ first, then. Wanna tell me what the hell ya were thinkin’, comin’ here? Dwight said it could be a trap and ya drove straight into it!”

Rick scratches his beard. “Just kinda happened. Michonne, Rosita, Sasha, and Carl took off back to Alexandria—Rosita’s setting a booby trap, plus we’re bringing half our guns back defend Hilltop. Maggie’s sick, Eugene and Aaron are busy.” Rick grips the steering wheel tighter, knuckles turning white. “And I had to know. We were fixing to choose between risking _all_ our lives, if Gregory spilled to Negan… or hitting the Sanctuary with you two still trapped inside. Tore me in half and I just… I had to _know_. Couldn’t stand to lose anyone else.”

That’s leaning into dangerous territory, shit Daryl can’t face talking about now. He quickly redirects, “What the hell kinda plan has fuckin’ Eugene busy while Rick Grimes plays errand boy?”

“You’ll see. Unless you’re too _stoned_ to help out.” Daryl rolls his eyes and snorts, but it turns out Rick isn’t kidding. “That was, uh… that was a whole lotta things I didn't know you were into.” He waves a hand awkwardly. “Back there. And here I thought I knew you better than anyone. Is this some kinda reaction, grief or shock or-”

“Weren't tryin to hide nothin’,” Daryl interjects, a bit defensively and not entirely honestly. “Before this. Never pretended I was, y’know, into chicks or whatever.”

In this nightmare scenario where he has to either talk about being a faggot or about his overwhelming feelings… well, hell, like Paul had said, Rick already caught them red handed.

The truck rolls past the town’s welcome sign and onto the open road. It’ll be almost an hour before they reach Hilltop.

"Didn't mean that.” Rick’s lips twitch. “Well, alright, I _also_ meant that, but-" Flustered, he pauses and begins again, slower, “It being a man is a surprise, yeah, but I don’t give a shit so long as you’re happy. Hell, you being interested in _anybody_ is a surprise, but not a bad one.”

Daryl grunts in acknowledgement, patting his pockets as if a cigarette might magically appear inside. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he can see Paul’s hair blowing in the wind.

The leader persists, “Never known you to use drugs before, though, outside of your Merle stories. Can't say I'm a fan of _that_ surprise.”

“S’just pot, Rick, good lord,” Daryl responds, exasperated but also relieved at the change of topic.

“So what?”

“So ya can untwist your panties, that’s what. Ain’t hardly a _drug_ , man. Everyone’s done pot.”

“I haven’t,” Rick says, and Daryl can’t help but snort again.

“Course ya haven’t. Take my word for it, pot don’t count, alright?”

Rick grimaces a little. “You still feeling it? The, uh, the effects?”

“ _No_. M’ready to fight, do whatever needs doin’.”

“Alright. Just… you know if you need to talk about- about anything, I’m here,” the leader says, eyes facing the road ahead of them. “I know maybe you can’t right now, that maybe we both gotta put it away. But after we get through this, after we win…”

Rick never finishes his sentence and goes quiet for several miles.

It lulls Daryl into a false sense of security.

Then the other man pipes up, “So are obnoxious hippie pricks generally your type? Or is this one in particular just _so_ pretty-”

Daryl socks him hard in the shoulder and Rick’s sentence ends in a low chuckle. Neither of them are up to laughing, but the teasing is still good. It feels normal. Rick probably thinks he needs the distraction.

Hell, maybe he does.

“Might just be this one," Daryl smiles, an awkward half-smirk, but it slides right off his face a moment later. He thinks about what Abraham had said about settling down.

Rick draws him back in. “You get your hippie to give up the drug habit and you can invite him to the house for dinner. Maybe even a sleepover.”

He’s definitely winding Daryl up on purpose, keeping him in the present moment. Daryl tries to play along.

“Guy sparked up _once_. It’s the end of the world, stop being such a fuckin’ pig,” Daryl says. He's not able to look at Rick when he adds cautiously, “‘Sides, I could leave. Uh, get my own place.”

“Nah, can’t let you move out, you’re the only one Carl listens to anymore. And I’m not being a cop, I’m being your brother. Guarding your virtue against pretty little pot-smoking hippies.”

It’s a ridiculous thing to say, and Daryl would bet his last bolt that that ‘brother’ comment was Rick’s gentle way of reassuring him. Rick knows him well enough to know he blames himself for Glenn's death, and despite how badly he fucked up, the man still wants him in Alexandria.

Pursing his lips, the hunter has to pause a moment to gather himself before he can continue their banter. “Don’t let him hear ya. He’s short but he’s a spitfire. Good in a fight,” Daryl stretches his legs out in front of him, blushing as he says, “Good at a whole lotta things.”

It’s worth it when he gets a real grin from Rick. “Alright, alright, you win. I’ll shut up for now.”

—

About ten minutes later the leader says quietly, “Glenn woulda teased you something awful, but he'd've been so damn happy for-”

“Don’t,” Daryl interrupts curtly. He softens it by clasping Rick's shoulder for a moment.

They ride in silence the rest of the way. Daryl even manages to catch a twenty minute nap.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify: Rick isn't scandalized over the pot so much as worried about Daryl's seemingly erratic behavior. But my head canon is that as a former cop, he would take marijuana use more seriously than if he'd walked in on them hungover or something.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus is heading home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've never heard the phrase "jumping the shark," maybe give it a quick google before reading this. And remember I came up with this plot due to an immense hatred of Negan et al after they murdered Glenn and Abe <3

“Paul. You made it,” Alex says quietly, clasping Jesus’s arm.

“Told you I would.” Jesus grins at his ex-boyfriend’s disapproving expression. It’s an old fight between them, Jesus’s recklessness.

Sighing, Alex leans in and kisses him softly on the cheek, lingering close for a long moment, and Jesus can’t help but glance into the cab to see if Daryl is watching them. He only sees dark, messy waves of hair, though, and feels irrationally relieved about that.

—

Aside from the rush of wind over the bed of the truck, the ride back to Hilltop is eerily silent. They have to concentrate on watching the darkness around them for any sign of Saviors nearby, guns ready in their hands just in case.

Usually Jesus loves the quiet, but just now it’s driving him out of his godforsaken mind. His instinct is to bail out of the truck and find some trouble to get into, but the worst trouble for miles around is going to be heading for Hilltop soon and he has to be there. They’ll need all hands on deck.

With nothing to distract him, though, his mind is ping-ponging between topics best avoided.

He can’t let himself think about Gregory, that disgusting, cowardly son of a bitch.

He definitely can’t think about Boez, or anything that happened at the Sanctuary.

Fighting down a swoop of nausea, Jesus almost wishes he’d taken the front seat. Maybe Rick would have embarrassed them both with some sort of shovel talk—that would have been humorous, at least. Even better, though, would be sitting in the cab with Daryl, flirting shamelessly just because Jesus likes it when the other man is a red, stuttering mess. He wants to crack jokes, talk strategy, tease, argue, _anything_. He’d take a punch in the face over the constant, numbing rush of air.

He amuses himself for a moment, imagining exactly how awkward Daryl is going to be about their one-night stand. He'd be willing to bet he could pick a fight just by trailing his fingers over those muscled biceps somewhere Rick could see them. Yeah, Daryl would probably lose his shit over that.

The frivolous train of thought can’t distract Jesus for long, and soon his mind is wandering again. The filthy trailer. Being pushed to his knees in the yard at Hilltop. The teenaged Savior’s open throat. The woods where Jesus had embarrassed himself by sobbing into his hands like a small boy. Gregory’s office and the hundreds of times he’d made excuses for the old man. Daryl’s vacant, feverish eyes after Boez pushed a gun into his mouth.

A rough hand on Jesus's jaw. A tongue dragging against his cheek.

Jesus leans over the edge of the truck and vomits, one hand holding back his hair in the whipping wind and the other extended towards Alex to stop the nurse from coming closer.

“Just carsick,” he says quickly when he’s finished, pulling out his bandana to wipe his mouth. Glancing at the front of the truck, there’s no sign Rick or Daryl noticed.

Alex narrows his eyes as he hands over a water bottle. “You don’t get carsick.”

Shrugging, Jesus takes a sip of water and swishes it around in his mouth, spitting it out onto the road.

The sky begins to lighten, giving some shape to the overgrown fields and decrepit buildings around them. The truck speeds past an old wreck, human remains long rotted away in the seats.

—

Jesus sees the lookouts, but only because he knows where to look. Bertie, Johnny, and Mandy are well-hidden. Enid waves as they pass, gesturing with her hand clutching her radio to show that she’s informed the others of their arrival.

As the truck drives closer to Hilltop, it almost looks like a herd is attacking the walls in the gray light. Instead it seems the combined population of Hilltop and Alexandria are outside the gates, digging into the surrounding earth with shovels and pickaxes. That wasn’t part of the plan when Jesus left, and he can’t fathom why their forces would be tiring themselves out instead of resting for the battle to come.

It seems almost everyone is out there, too--as they pull into Hilltop the place is practically empty, besides Aaron and Earl loading sacks of fertilizer into a large truck that’s already piled high with miscellaneous bottles, crates, and sacks.

“What’s with the digging?” Jesus calls as the truck pulls to a stop by the barn.

Aaron doesn’t seem to hear the question. “You did it.” Jesus jumps to the ground and finds himself being yanked into a quick, fertilizer-scented hug. “Daryl, thank God.” Daryl’s only half out of the car when Aaron’s arms wrap around him next. “We thought… I can’t believe you’re here. You’re… Maggie has been asking for you, she's still a little out of it. You should go see her. She’s in the medical trailer.”

Daryl just grunts, eyes on the ground.

“Aaron,” Rick says urgently as he slams the driver side door shut, “why does it look like _all_ of Alexandria is here?”

“And why are they digging?” Jesus repeats impatiently. “Are they _trenches_ , or…”

“A fire break. Sasha’s idea.” Aaron is filthy and looks exhausted, but he turns and hefts another bag of fertilizer as he answers. “She was a firefighter, before. Apparently with the drought and the wilder terrain between here and the Sanctuary… well, the explosions could start a massive forest fire. Alexandria should be safe, there’s the river, highway, and quarry between, but here we’ll be at risk.”

Jesus frowns, picturing a massive fire barreling towards his home. He wonders how many other things they may be forgetting in this sudden uprising, how many of those forgotten details may come back to bite them in the ass.

“Explosions?” Daryl asks, staring.

Everyone ignores him.

“We can’t have people out there exposed when the Saviors come,” Rick says.

“They’re almost done.”

The leader nods reluctantly. “That why so many Alexandrians are here? To dig?”

“Not… not exactly. Michonne decided to keep only a few people in Alexandria—herself and a couple of snipers, in case Negan shows up there and survives Rosita’s booby trap at the gate. She has Sasha and Dante with her.”

“Michonne made the call?”

“Rosita says she tried to talk her out of it—she’s inside helping Eugene with the detonators now,” Aaron gives the leader a sympathetic look. “But Michonne thought it made more sense to keep our fighters together, and Hilltop is easier to defend. They sent back all the weapons besides their rifles, so everyone here will be armed.”

“Smart woman,” Earl puts in from the other side of the truck. Rick grimaces his direction but doesn't disagree.

“The kids and the old people from both communities are going to some place called The Kingdom. They’re already on their way,” Aaron continues, hauling himself into the truck to rearrange some items. “Dwight stayed to fight, he’s out there digging now.”

“The Kingdom? Where the hell is that?”

“It’s a good place,” Jesus says, seeing Rick’s agitation. “It’s up north. They’ll be safe there, even if… even if things go south here or in the air.”

Daryl whips his head around, and Jesus's stomach flips in either anticipation or renewed nausea as wide blue-gray eyes meet his. “In the _air_? Alright, what the fuck are y'all plannin'?”

Rick saves Jesus from explaining. “Earl here used to be in the Air Force, a chopper pilot, and it turns out Jesus recently found a helicopter tour company when he was out scouting down by the coast. Earl and Aaron went to check it out yesterday and one of the things still runs." Rick smiles grimly. "So in a couple hours, we’re raining homemade bombs down on the Sanctuary.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if I'll keep it, but right now the first line of the next chapter is:
> 
> “That’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard of,” Daryl says. “And I grew up around Merle, Rick.”
> 
> Originally Eugene was my only explosives expert, but then season seven happened, so now Rosita is helping him.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's just not Daryl's day.

“That’s the shittiest plan I’ve ever heard of, and I grew up with _Merle_ , Rick.” Daryl turns to Aaron. “Does Eric know you’re doin’ this? Cause it sounds like a fuckin’ suicide mission. How’d they even rope ya into it?”

“It’ll work, Daryl,” his friend replies gently. “We tested the helicopter yesterday. And I’ve… well, I’m the only one besides Earl who has even been in a helicopter before. It’s how we delivered supplies in Nigeria, back before the Turn.”

“So you’ve sat on your ass in a chopper before? You ever flown one? Pushed a fuckin’ bomb outta one?”

“I had a couple of, uh, kind of informal flying lessons-”

Ignoring Aaron’s spluttering, Daryl faces off with Rick again. “Rick, man, tell me ya got a back-up plan that makes some kinda sense.”

His mind is spinning with everything that could go wrong. The chopper almost certainly hadn’t been flown since the Turn; homemade bombs couldn’t possibly be stable to transport; besides yesterday, when was the last time this Earl guy had flown?

“Excuse me, but this plan most certainly does make sense.” The group turns to see Eugene coming towards them, eyes red. Rosita follows with a small bag. “While our initial objective was merely to cause structural damage and general mayhem with Alexandria’s bazooka and a few makeshift explosives that would both decimate smaller buildings and attract the dead from miles around, the defector has provided invaluable intel on the location of storage facilities for accelerants such as gasoline and propane. The so-called Sanctuary also has a supply of plastic explosives within the main facility. With even a moderate run of luck, striking these targets will create a sizable conflagration that will produce toxic smoke and rob the area of O2, a vital compound for living, breathing human life.”

Daryl blinks. 

“What he said,” Rick says, smiling grimly. “All that, and… if we’re gonna win, and if if we’re gonna have enough of us stay alive to build something afterwards, it’s gotta be fast. We can’t wait, the Saviors are gonna come for half our guns, half our ammo… half of everything. We take out their home, maybe it’s harder for them to regroup. Then we the rest out as we find them.” 

“You’re takin’ the bazooka? Any of you ever even shot it before?” He knows the answer before he asks. Aaron is good with a gun, but Daryl isn’t sure any of them have the upper body strength to control the extra firepower. A bit meanly, he turns to Eugene. “That gonna be your job, aimin’ the heavy artillery?”

Eugene takes a step backwards, hands raising defensively. “My contribution is limited to the derivation of explosive chemical compounds and construction of appropriate containers for said compounds—I do not believe it would be conducive to mission success for me to accompany said weapons to their destination-”

“Wait, you’re not going on the helicopter?” Rick asks, and Aaron and Earl look equally surprised.

Before Eugene can answer, a Hilltop man Daryl recognizes but doesn’t know well sprints up behind them. Paul, who had been silent as the others discussed Rick’s insane plan, jogs forward to meet him. “Eduardo, what is it?”

“Gregory,” the young man gasps, “He’s escaped.”

—

Daryl isn’t in the habit of questioning Rick’s decisions, but this might be the moment he starts.

“I should go,” he snarls, because it’s obvious, and because fucking Paul Rovia looks entirely too calm. “Guy could be anywhere. I’m the tracker, this asshole,” he jerks his head at Paul, “would still be wandering in the damn woods if I hadn’t’ve gotten him to Post Oak-”

“That was a ploy to trick you into coming with me. A ploy that worked, as you know,” Paul replies patiently, like Daryl’s a moron. Daryl’s fist clenches tightly but he manages to stop himself from smacking him. “ _Finding_ Gregory is only half the battle—tricking him into revealing what he’s told the Saviors is the real challenge. This is going to require finesse, Rick.” He glances at Daryl, and his implication is pretty obvious.

“Fuck your finesse, this is gonna require a trail and a bullet,” Daryl spits, glaring.

Paul continues like Daryl hasn’t spoken. “And as for tracking… I’m not bad at it." Daryl snorts loudly, and Paul keeps on ignoring him. "But regardless, I don’t think tracking will even be necessary. As far as I know, Gregory hasn’t left Hilltop since the walls went up. Maybe he’s been meeting Saviors on the sly in the woods somehow, but my guess is that they came to him. The only place he really knows nearby is this tiny town a little west of here… he had a vacation home there, it’s where he was at the turn. He sent me once, to fetch his Scotch collection.”

Daryl snorts, imagining Paul doing Gregory’s bidding like a goddamn errand boy and feeling unreasonably annoyed by the idea. Paul’s twice the man Gregory is. He could have saved them all a lot of trouble by kicking the creepy prick into the arms of the nearest walker and taking over himself.

“Yeah, I know,” Paul says, like he can hear Daryl’s bitchy thoughts. “But what I’m saying is, I think he must have gone back there to hide out. It’s not too far, and truthfully I can’t imagine him walking into a war zone just to warn the Saviors we’re coming. Even if he is a traitor, he’s first and foremost a coward—he wouldn’t risk his skin for Negan.”

“Fine. You go check if Fido somehow found his way home, I’ll get his trail and actually find the dumb son of a bitch,” Daryl says. He thinks it’s a pretty reasonable compromise.

Rick sighs, hand combing through his hair. His face forms that ‘ _keep the redneck calm_ ’ expression Daryl’s seen so many times, starting from the day they first met at the quarry. “Jesus knows Gregory. If we can find out what he’s told Negan, when he last met with a Savior, that would be better.” Seeing Daryl swell up in indignation, Rick cuts him off quickly. “Besides, as you pointed out, you’re the only one who’s fired that bazooka… and we’re gonna need someone with good aim to set the Sanctuary on fire.”

—

Two hours later Daryl finds himself flying through the sky for the first time in his life, clinging to the seat of some tourism company’s rickety old chopper filled with sketchy homemade explosives and vowing, if he survives the day, to never listen to Rick Grimes ever again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone's still reading this... hi there, sorry I'm the slowest updater ever! XD


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus being Jesus.

There isn’t any information, much less any closure, to be had from Gregory.

Less than halfway to Shannon Hill, Virginia, Jesus sees a corpse stumbling stupidly after a squirrel, moaning in a voice that is eerily recognizable. He should have known the search would end like this, and he’s glad he refused Eduardo’s help. This errand has turned out to be a waste of time, and they need every hand on deck at Hilltop right now.

Jesus and Gregory hadn’t been close, of course. The leader was a lecherous asshole, and Jesus wasn’t around enough to get close to anyone. But still, of everyone at Hilltop besides Alex and maybe Dr. Carson, Gregory was the person he’d spent the most time with in the community. He’d tried to help the old man, so clearly in over his head, to at least keep people safe and fed.

Putting Gregory down isn’t a pleasure, despite the man’s betrayal. It’s just rote. Jesus feels too numb for anything more than a flicker of relief that he won’t have to drag the coward back kicking and screaming.

He can’t help thinking that maybe if he had been around more, he’d have been able to stop Gregory from selling them out somehow. Or at least he might have seen the betrayal coming. Now they can only hope the Saviors haven’t been warned, that they fall into the trap at Alexandria and that Earl, Daryl, and Aaron are successful.

Jesus smiled a little as he wipes Gregory’s blood off his knife, thinking of the stubborn redneck on a helicopter packed with explosives, carrying out a plan he fully believes to be insane, just because Rick told him he needed him there. The lengths Daryl would go to protect his family are a little unexpected. Jesus can’t relate to it, really—it’s been so long since he had a family—but he admires it. He hopes the other man makes it through the day.

Leaving Gregory’s corpse where it fell, Jesus sheaths his knife and pulls out his pistol, keeping it low as he walks back the way he came. He’s not going to waste time burying his former leader; instead he hurries away to help defend his home.

—

Gunfire from a distance sounds a lot like a fireworks show. It’s a useful trick, but it always reminds Jesus unpleasantly of the one family vacation he remembers before his parents died. Disneyland’s fireworks weren’t visible from their musty hotel room, but the noise had echoed strangely through the air, sharpening his excitement to visit the park the next day.

He’s still at least two miles from Hilltop when he hears the same echoes. Unlike the banging of fireworks in a trashcan, this noise is thunderous—maybe as many as a hundred different weapons.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the gunfire stops.

Stripping his coat and leaving it hung over a branch, Jesus sprints towards Hilltop.

—

Not trusting the silence, Jesus sneaks around the front of the colony, dodging from tree to tree and keeping an eye out for Saviors lingering behind their main army. He finds one keeping watch and ends him quickly with a stab behind the ear.

When he’s close enough for a decent vantage he climbs a tree and takes in the scene with bated breath. Hilltop and Alexandria’s combined forces are gathered atop the walls. The Saviors’ collection of cars and trucks in gathered in front of Hilltop’s gate, with fifty or so soldiers standing around.

Negan stands on the bed of a truck. Simon is next to him, pointing a gun at Michonne’s head. She kneels, bound hand and foot, in front of him.

It’s a standoff. It looks like maybe Rick and Negan are negotiating, but Jesus can’t imagine any solution that will end well. You can’t negotiate with a psychopath.

There are bodies on the field already, some crumpled on the ground by the walls and some scattered amongst the Saviors. Many of the Saviors are bandaged or otherwise injured—Jesus would guess Michonne’s little ambush at Alexandria took out a fair few of them before they realized they were being played.

Everyone is riveted, eyes are fixed on their leaders.

After taking inventory of the collection of cars and trucks and the number of Saviors clustered around each, Jesus smiles and pulls his sweaty hair into a bun.

He thinks he can probably speed the negotiations along.

—

It’s surprisingly easy. Jesus only has to kill three Saviors to sneak on top of a nearby truck, and from there it’s just one careful, precise leap and he has a gun to the side of Negan’s head. Simon shouts and jerks his weapon over, but it’s too late now. Any move would risk killing their leader.

“Your soldiers suck,” Jesus says casually, clicking off the safety of his pistol. “Now tell Simon to untie Michonne, please.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two little chapters, because even though I take for-fucking-ever to update I do in fact plan on finishing this story :)
> 
> In case it wasn't obvious, I take Virginia town names at random and insert them into this story with no regard for geography whatsoever.
> 
> Also, of course, this last bit is a shoutout to the comics, because Jesus is forever badass and I desperately want some iteration of this scene in the show <3


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus is in over his head.

“Hold your fire! Nobody fucking pull any fucking triggers!”

The Savior’s leader sounds scared.

Good.

They’re on the bed of a big semi truck, one loaded with only an empty coffin. Jesus isn’t sure what that’s about, but he’s glad this is what Negan chose as a platform for his dramatics—he drags the other man until their backs are against the back of the cab, and it’s tall enough to provide his head with some cover. No one can sneak up behind him.

His chest itches where it’s pressed to Negan’s back. He’s sweating and trembling slightly, even though he feels calm.

He _does_ feel calm, doesn’t he?

“Tell Simon to let her go,” Jesus repeats, digging the barrel of the gun into Negan’s temple.

His voice shakes. God damn it.

“How do you think this ends for you, huh?” Negan asks, and he’s grown calmer. Jesus scowls at the contrast. “Even if you kill me, they’re still going to mow you the fuck down.”

Ignoring him, Jesus says loudly to Simon, “You heard me. Let her go.”

“You really looking to die today?” Negan asks. “Cause that’s where we go from here. That’s what you’re signing yourself up for, asshole.”

He smells faintly of jerky and some kind of soap.

“Could be worth it, to rid the new world of scum like you. Pillagers, rapists, thieves…” Jesus trailed off vaguely, not sure where he was going with that. He’s not usually one for speeches, that was always more Gregory’s bag.

Adrenalin pumps through him. He doesn’t know why he’s reacting like this. Sure, there are a _lot_ of guns pointed at him, but being in danger has never caused him to panic like this before.

The smell hits him again, nauseating him, and that’s when he understands.

Negan smells like Boez.

He isn’t the man who attacked him, not directly—but then they’re _all_ Negan, aren’t they? Dizzy, Jesus leans back against the cab of the truck. He tightens his grip on his gun.

Simon is untying Michonne, but he’s dragging his feet about it. Without warning, Jesus whips his gun to the side, shoots a random Savior in the leg, and has the muzzle back at Negan’s head a split second later.

Everyone jumps. The Savior screams and collapses, firing a random round into a tire of the truck.

It was stupid, impulsive, and Jesus regrets it immediately. What the fuck is wrong with him? He’s lucky no one—well, no one _else_ —got trigger happy. A wrong move like that could have ended him _and_ Michonne.

It does the job, at least. Michonne is relieving Simon of his gun a moment later.

“Jesus,” she says, soft steel in her voice, “How do you want to play this?”

“Get through the gates. I’ll be there soon.”

Negan snorts. “For the Son of God you sure as shit don’t have a lot of fucking foresight. There’s no way out of this for you, not unless you work with me, cause if I die then you’re coming to hell with me.”

Holding her gun on Simon, Michonne continues to hesitate.

“Michonne, go.”

“I can’t just-”

“You have kids,” he says sharply. “And Rick needs you. Go.”

He’s not suicidal, but he accepted death long ago.

“I’m not leaving you out here,” she says fiercely, and despite their different DNA, Jesus sees a bit of family resemblance between her and Daryl in that moment.

“I have a plan,” Jesus lies. “Now _go_.”

For a tense moment, no one moves. Everything is silent; Jesus hears a fly buzz by.

Finally, finally, she nods. Then she shoves Simon on the shoulder. “You’re coming with me. Jump down, hands on your head.”

The pair moves slowly through the crowd of aiming Saviors—many with their weapons still on the Alexandrians and Hilltoppers above the walls, but a fair few with Jesus in their sights. One or two track Michonne with their guns until she reaches the gate. They crack it open and drag her and Simon inside, and Jesus’s muscles relax slightly.

“Now what, princess?” Negan asks, and Jesus tenses again immediately.

 _Princess._ He almost squeezes the trigger.

“Tell your people to stand down. Get at least ten miles down the road. I’ll let you go when they’re gone.”

“Right, ok, and then I just skip along home? And I’m sure one of Rick’s conveniently-placed snipers definitely won’t shoot me in the back, huh?” Negan still sounds like this is all a joke—it’s maddening. “No siree. We need to work something out, some way-”

An explosion in the distance startles everyone, including Negan. The Savior’s head jerks to the side, instinctively following the noise.

Then his head jerks again when a bullet enters his brain.

Jesus’s eyes dart to the wall, where Sasha’s rifle is smoking. It’s already pointed at another Savior, though, and she fires again, taking that one down as well.

He knows she’s a good shot, but damn, that was close. If he’d had a full bladder Jesus might have pissed himself.

Leverage gone, he shoves Negan’s corpse into a knot of three Saviors at the side of the truck and aerial’s off the other direction. The people on the wall must have marked the Saviors aiming for Jesus and shot them first, because aside from a graze on his calf, he makes it to the ground unscathed. A second later he’s under the truck, crawling fast towards the rear axel as gunfire peppers the ground around him. He hears another explosion, this one seeming a lot louder, and somewhere in the back of his mind he prays that he didn’t just hear the sound of a helicopter going down.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, that's right, Sasha killed Negan--because fuck him, that's why.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl is in over his head.

It’s a hell of a time for Daryl to find out he’s afraid of heights.

It shouldn’t surprise him, really. He hasn’t been in that many tall buildings in his life, and climbing trees didn’t feel anywhere near the same as trusting a rust bucket that hasn’t been flown since the Turn to keep you safe while hovering miles in the air.

It’s a large craft and Aaron and Eugene had removed all unnecessary seats while Daryl was a guest at the Sanctuary. Fertilizer bombs packed in barrels fill most of the space, topped with actual sticks of dynamite and some other, more unstable, explosives. There are a few smaller bombs made out of other chemicals, too—Daryl doesn’t even want to know how badly they’d all be fucked if some piece of crap equipment in the rust bucket sparks unexpectedly.

It literally smells like shit with the doors of the chopper closed around them, but Daryl’s still not looking forward to opening them. He has the bazooka on his lap and extra missiles in a box between his feet.

The whole thing is a deathtrap. He saw Aaron’s goodbye to Eric at Hilltop and knew he felt the same.

Earl continues flying east. They have their radios and headsets, but for the most part, no one speaks.

Finally, after maybe ten silent minutes, Earl asks, “So what will you boys do if we survive this? Smoke a cigar? Kiss a pretty girl? Personally I think I’ll get drunk as a fiddler.”

Just the mention of smoke makes Daryl’s hand twitch in phantom fear at the idea of a lit cigar in this tinder box.

Aaron laughs, but it sounds weak even through the radio. “I think I’ll join you. After kissing a handsome man, that is.”

“Same,” Daryl says without thinking. Aaron’s head whips around to look at him, and Daryl has an irrational moment of fearing that the quick motion will set something ablaze in the cabin. Ignoring Aaron's stare and his fear, Daryl adds, “Might have ta smack Eugene around a little, too.”

The other men chuckle.

Then Earl kills the mood by saying, “Just so you boys know, if the bird takes damage, I’m steering towards their propane. So if that happens… well, it’s been an honor.”

Aaron and Daryl look at each other, Aaron craning his neck from the front of the chopper. He can’t think of anything comforting to say, so Daryl just reaches out a hand and squeezes his shoulder.

—

No one tries to shoot them down as they approach the Sanctuary until they drop the first bomb.

Daryl’s never been more proud of Eugene, present circumstance aside—because _he_ should be the one high in the air, his belt clipped to an ancient helicopter with climbing rope and a cheap-looking carabiner—but even so, Daryl’s glad that the man is on their team. because the makeshift bomb explodes like a volcano or something when it hits the top of the Sanctuary’s main building. The building is ablaze instantly. It’s outer walls are some kind of metal, but apparently the blast had enough force or heat to penetrate the roof. Smoke pours from the interior.

Daryl finds he doesn’t like the idea of killing from so far away. Other people he’s killed, he’s been able to see them—he’s had to aim, and fire, knowing who he’d hit. This is different. He knows some of those poor sons of bitches on the ground aren’t as bad as Negan himself, or Boez, that motherfucking sadist.

There’s no going back now, though.

Someone opens fire from below and Earl jerks the chopper to one side. Aaron curses as two barrels fall out of the open door, blasting a single trailer to smithereens. It’s a waste they can’t afford.

“That’s the propane storage, Dwight said--the green tank,” Aaron shouts through the radio. “A little north, Earl!”

When they’re hovering over it, Daryl and Aaron carefully push another barrel bomb out. It lands close to the tank, but not close enough. The dry brush and trees nearby ignite, but the tank itself is unharmed.

“Let’s try that again-”

“Nah, look,” Daryl points to the blaze they’ve started. “It’s gonna be a forest fire, like Sasha said. The propane tank’ll go eventually. Let’s focus on the buildings.” He hates thinking about the woods turning into ash, the dead game and ruined resources.

He hates everything about this, really.

It has to be done, he thinks, shoving hard at another barrel with Aaron. These assholes don’t get to take _Glenn_ and live.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple of short ones because I suck at writing action sequences. If you point out a typo for me I'll write you a ficlet or something... I did not have time to edit.
> 
> Might be next week though, my wife's on vacation this week! :-)


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Action heroes.

The sound of the Sanctuary’s propane tank combusting echoes in Daryl’s ears for at least fifteen minutes after it explodes.

They’ve finally gotten the last of the bombs through the door. A couple sounded like they never went off, but Daryl can’t really be sure. The helicopter blades block out a lot of noise.

He’s dizzy, which is a disconcerting feeling to have in a fucking chopper. All the smoke is burning his lungs. Aaron is much worse off, though—the other man can hardly take a breath. He’s gripping a handhold near the open door, coughing and wheezing.

Swearing, Daryl says into his radio headset, “Earl, we gotta get clear of this smoke for a minute. Aaron ain’t-”

Earl interrupts. “We got what we came for, right? Can we head back?”

Aaron tries to answer but can’t seem to get enough air to speak. Not sure what else to do, Daryl smacks him on the back a few times as he thinks.

He hasn’t fired a single shot from the bazooka and they wanted to make sure they hit the shed where the Saviors had stockpiled gasoline, but he doubts he could see to aim anyhow. They can’t waste ammo firing into a void of smoke.

Convinced that he’s not _just_ taking the easy way out to get their asses back on the ground as soon as possible, Daryl slams the door shut and starts helping Aaron into the seat behind Earl. “Get us the fuck out of here.”

Once Aaron’s buckled in, Daryl squeezes in to sit in the co-pilot’s seat. The big windows in front of him reveal the view: smoke billows everywhere against a blue sky, and before he sits down he can see flames surrounding the Sanctuary.

That gasoline is going to blow, if it hasn’t already. Daryl relaxes infinitesimally, sinking into the cracked leather seat.

“Ten-four,” the older man says gruffly, turning the helicopter sharply enough that the tilt makes Daryl’s stomach flop dangerously. “So you think it’ll be enough?”

Daryl doesn’t answer right away. Instead he gazes out the window, thinking about all the people trapped in the hellscape below.

These were Saviors. They lived by blackmail and theft. Still, he can’t help but pity them, even if he doesn’t regret what they’ve done.

Shit way to go, though. His mother crosses his mind and he almost gags, stomach roiling again.

He knows there are mothers down there, too. Dwight saved the kids and some of their moms, but he hadn’t saved all of them—some were too loyal to Negan to be trusted. He’d taken their children and ran, and they were going to have to raise those kids, live with that fucked-up form of mercy.

Remembering the burnt remains of his childhood home, tears start running down Daryl’s face. He’s grateful for all the smoke as he swipes at his cheeks roughly.

“Yeah, I think we did enough.”

—

Earl puts them down at the same airfield they left about an hour and a half before.

Aaron is breathing again, but he looks like he might pass out at any moment. Their faces are all streaked in gray and brown. Sweat soaks their clothes and skin. Daryl’s knees had been steady the whole time he was edging around the chopper shoving bombs out the door, but they shake now that he’s finally back on solid ground.

“You good?” Aaron asks, noticing. The effort sends him into another coughing fit. Earl clasps his shoulder while he hacks and wheezes.

“Yeah, m’good. You two?” Daryl responds, watching his friend closely.

Aaron manages a nod, face bright red behind the soot. Frowning, Daryl turns and pulls the bazooka out from the helicopter.

“Just glad that thing held together,” Earl says, moping sweat from his bald spot with his sleeve. “I was putting a brave face on it, but flying a bird that hasn’t seen a maintenance crew in years…”

Daryl had kind of figured. He nods, loading his weapon so they’re ready for any trouble on the road.

As they load into the car and start the journey back, there’s no moment of celebration or even plain relief at surviving their insane mission. Each man sits stone-faced and quiet, thoughts running ahead of them to their families at Hilltop.

—

They’re a couple miles out, they nearly collide head-on with a car full of Saviors hauling ass down the small country road. Green Jacket is driving, and he sends the car squealing into a ditch when he realizes he’s on a collision course with Earl’s massive truck. A split second later Earl slams on the brakes as well, tires shrieking on the asphalt, but he manages to keep control of the vehicle.

They all turn towards the Saviors’ car, Daryl opening his door to lean out. It’s tilting nose-down in the ditch, but the car looks fine, aside from having its rear tires a foot in the air.

He and Aaron look at each other, having a silent conversation while Earl fumbles for his gun.

“It’s a risk,” Aaron says, and Daryl agrees. Maybe these Saviors are fleeing a battle, maybe they’re going to get reinforcements or more munitions—it doesn’t matter.

It’s a risk.

Daryl sends a rocket into the wrecked car, startling Earl. He reloads as it burns, and they continue on their way back home.

—

Hilltop is awash with the dead when they arrive.

The gunfire must have attracted a small herd. It’s an advantage; the Saviors outnumber the fighters inside the wall, but they’re fighting off the dead and being picked off by the living as they try to get through the gate.

Earl stops the car at the bottom of the hill near a ravine, and Daryl can see his family atop the walls along with various Hilltop folks. His heart soars with relief with each person he sees: Sasha first, then Rick and Michonne side by side. Then Carl’s head pops up beside his father’s. He knows Maggie is probably safe in the medical trailer, but he desperately scans the walls for her anyway.

Rosita is missing. He also can’t find Paul, but he tells himself that the sneaky asshole is probably working on some trick behind the scenes.

“There’s your man,” Daryl grunts, looking back at Aaron and pointing to where Eric is perched on a corner of the wall.

Aaron’s head sinks forward into the seat for a moment, eyes closing. “He’s- I can’t believe we’re both still…” His voice trembles and he breaks off.

“Yeah. Ain’t over yet, but… yeah, I getcha.”

“Bertie,” Earl says on an exhale. Daryl can see her, too, a tall black woman with short hair clustered with some of Hilltop’s more experienced fighters.

Before they can make a plan, the driver’s side window and Earl’s head explode in a shower of glass, blood, and bit of brain matter.

Someone wrenches open Earl’s door, but Aaron’s shot the Savior through the neck before he can do any more damage. Daryl scrambles out of the car, Aaron a half-second behind him, as another Savior begins shooting, striking Earl’s body and the back rear tire.

Daryl lights them up, too. It’s probably a waste of firepower on one shooter but he’s too rattled to care. The shooting stops in a blaze of fire.

“Useful,” Aaron says, gesturing shakily at the weapon. Then he takes his sleeve and wipes blood spray from the side of Daryl’s face.

Grunting, Daryl hoists the bazooka over his shoulder and grabs the case of remaining rockets from the truck with his other hand. “Get Earl’s gun. We can walk up the hill with the woods as cover, pick ‘em off from a distance.”

—

They set up at the base of a huge tree. Aaron’s not a sharp-shooter so he’ll mostly stand guard and make sure no one sneaks up on them from the woods while Daryl fires the rest of their weaponry into the mob of Saviors and walkers in front of the gates.

Daryl can’t see Negan anywhere, but the field is a seething mass of chaos, with humans trying to take cover and walkers staggering around between a cluster of parked cars and trucks. Things aren’t looking good for the Saviors, but there are a hell of a lot of them still on the field; even after being held at the Sanctuary, Daryl had no idea there were that many of the fuckers. The ones who wanted to run already had, and the fighters left standing seem determined to breach the gates.

Some are firing on the guards atop the walls while another group stays low, clearly messing with the doors. It looks like someone already tried ramming the gates with a truck—they’re bent in places, but still holding.

Hilltop might be running out of ammo. Shots from the wall are sporadic now, and only their best marksmen are still firing: Sasha, Rick, Michonne, Dwight, and one or two of the Hilltop folks.

Daryl’s about to fire into a large knot of Saviors and cars when Aaron’s hand on his arm stops him.

“Is that- I think that’s _Jesus._ ”

It is.

Paul has a large man draped over his shoulder, and together they’re stumbling right towards Daryl and Aaron from the fray. Paul is limping heavily. Daryl hopes that’s because of the chubby, bearded stranger he’s dragging along, but the smaller man is also covered in blood—there’s a splotch on his pant leg, his shirt is half-dyed red, and he’s bleeding freely from a head wound over his right eye.

“Fuck,” Daryl says loudly. Without a second thought, he runs forward to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been an exercise in trying to force myself to write action stuff. It's... not my favorite. Back to the character-driven emo shit soon ;)
> 
> Any other writers want to hit me up with advice or strategies you use for action sequences, that'd be swell <3


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jesus has had a long day.

Saving Fat Joey had been impulsive, Jesus can admit that. As he drags the bleeding, slower man towards Daryl and Aaron, he thinks he could even admit that it _might_ have been a tactical error.

After throwing Negan’s corpse to the ground he’d been able to crawl, sneak, and finally sprint away from the main battle, killing three Saviors on the way. He intentionally slit their throats so they would turn, becoming weapons after death.

Dodging bullets until he rounded the corner of the walls, he finally got to a spot where he often snuck over Hilltop’s walls. There was a line of bolt holes in the corrugated iron; back when he’d first arrived and hadn’t trusted the picturesque appearance of permanency of the old house, he’d widened the bottom four enough to get the toe of his boots inside, making a sort of ladder.

Jesus had been partway up the wall when he heard a loud whisper. “Jesus! Jesus, is that you?” He looked behind him to see the pale man cowering in the trees, wounded in the shoulder and arm and obviously desperate for an escape.

Fat Joey is not a complete stranger. He had once come to Hilltop to unhook one of their generators for Negan, and after that Jesus had run into him a few times outside the gates setting up some contraption or another across the Saviors’ territory. He’d been impressed by the young man’s breadth of knowledge. They weren’t friends, of course, but they’d had civil conversations and he knew the Savior wasn’t a real threat.

More importantly, Jesus knew this particular Savior was useful. Smart. He’d been some kind of engineer, before.

Even without being wounded, though, it would have been physically impossible to get Joey over Hilltop’s high walls.

Cursing, Jesus had leapt down, already trying to figure out another way to get them inside.

—

“Behind the tree line!” Daryl shouts as he runs forward, and Jesus is in a hurry to obey. Daryl takes Joey’s other side and they haul ass. He doesn’t know if they’ve attracted attention from the battle yet, and in the chaos the danger of friendly fire from Hilltop’s defenders is almost as likely as being gunned down by Negan’s troops behind them. His back feels itchy, expecting a bullet at any moment.

The instant they have some cover from the trees, Aaron helps them get Joey seated against a tree and Daryl is in his face. “Ya hurt?”

“What?” Jesus looks down and sees Joey’s blood staining his shirt on one side. “No, I’m ok. He is, though. Hurt. He’s hurt.”

“Anyone else out there?”

Jesus looks at the field—there are dozens of Saviors still in the fight. It’s hard to tell exactly how many with the roamers starting to swarm around them. Some are trying to run, too, making a break for it rather than fighting on without their leader.

“ _Paul!_ Any of our people out there?” Daryl clarifies impatiently.

“No! No, everyone else is inside the gates.”

Without another word, Daryl turns, picks up his massive gun, and fires. Jesus has never seen a bazooka shot before—a whole line of Saviors and roamers go up in flames.

“Get shootin’, man!” Daryl shouts as he reloads. “Ain’t got much more ammo for this thing. Take out a few with Aaron’s rifle.”

“Right,” Jesus shakes himself into action. Aaron is already ripping his own jacket up to pack the wound in Joey’s arm, but he pauses to unsling his rifle from his shoulder. Jesus tries to give him his handgun in exchange, but Aaron pulls out a pistol instead, one Jesus recognizes as Earl’s.

 _Oh_.

There’s not time to think about it. Pushing the thought of Earl’s cheerful grin spreading under his reddish beard aside, Jesus takes cover and scans the field. Arat is standing on a truck trying to coordinate the remaining fighters.

Heart pounding, Jesus takes aim, but the whole truck ignites before he can pull the trigger.

“Too slow,” Daryl grunts from beside him, already pulling another rocket from the case.

Despite everything, all the horror of the last day and a half, Jesus smirks as he finds another target.

—

Eventually, they win.

The remaining Saviors either get away or die in the firestorm of Daryl’s rockets. The smell is horrifyingly similar to burning barbecue, and Jesus’s empty stomach twists in nauseated confusion. He, Daryl, Aaron, and Joey are nearly singed when they finally hobble past the twisted, glowing metal remains of the Saviors’ cars towards the gates.

Jesus looks for Negan’s body, but can’t find it. The dead are everywhere—some burnt, some shot, some torn to pieces by the roamers. He averts his eyes.

They're still coming from all directions, the roamers. It’s not a herd yet, but a few straggle in at a time, besieging the walls and wandering through the wreckage to feast on the bodies of the Saviors. Jesus, Daryl, Aaron, and Joey manage to make it into Hilltop only with the help of snipers on the walls picking off anything that comes too close. The bent, warped gates are heaved back into place as soon as they’re through, and Sasha backs the van Dwight brought from the Sanctuary up against them.

Instead of the dead, now they’re swarmed by the living. A man Jesus doesn’t recognize pulls Aaron into a fierce hug, foreheads pressed together intimately. Dwight and two women from the Sanctuary approach Joey curiously, helping him towards the medical trailer even as they begin to ask the obvious questions. Rick pats Daryl on the stomach before rounding on Jesus and, to his surprise, bringing him into a brief-but-tight hug.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “Thank you.”

—

Only the most seriously injured are being treated inside by Harlan and his brother, whom Dwight had managed to convince to defect along with the mothers and their children. Jesus helps Alex deal with the many minor injuries as best they can. The wound on his leg hadn’t needed stitches but Alex insisted on cleaning and stitching a cut on his forehead that he didn’t even remember getting.

“It might not be pretty when it heals,” he warns before he begins. “Harlan is better at this.”

From where he sits on the steps of the medical trailer Jesus can see Daryl with some others—Rick, Sasha, Dante, and a couple more—digging a row of graves. He knows Rosita is wrapped in a sheet in the row of bodies, shot through the neck as she fired down on the Saviors from the wall. Kal’s body is there, too, along with some others from Hilltop that he didn’t know all that well but will mourn anyways.

Earl’s body isn’t among them, and Jesus wonders idly where it is. He hopes Daryl and Aaron didn’t let the gentle older man turn. He hasn’t seen Bertie yet, but earlier he heard her wailing somewhere nearby and saw Daryl walking away a few moments later, face pale as he returned to digging graves.

Gregory never let them bury the dead inside the walls. He thinks about going to tell Daryl that, but there’s no going outside just yet anyway, so he supposes there isn’t really another option. Roamers surround them. They’re all trying to stay as quiet as possible inside the walls, hoping another noise will lead them away.

The hush, the groaning of the dead, and the ominous smoky sky above give everything a dreamlike feeling. The fire from the Sanctuary is clearly spreading. It’s dark now, but the horizon glows. It must be a hell of a blaze.

They can only hope the fire doesn’t devour them in a few days time. That it doesn’t lead an enormous herd of roamers into their backyard. That the remaining Saviors aren’t biding their time in the woods around Hilltop right now with some new scheme to punish them for their bloody, fiery rebellion.

Jesus snaps back and tries to focus on the task in front of him. He realizes he’s not sure what that is. He’s holding a bandage but Alex is the one wrapping up an older man’s wrist.

“When was the last time you slept, son?” the man asks. Tobin, that’s his name—Jesus is pretty sure, anyway.

“I’m fine,” Jesus says automatically as Alex finishes, tucking the end of the bandages under the folds. “I can still help.”

He repeats himself a few times as Alex asks the next patient to wait a few minutes, takes him by the shoulder, and steers him to his trailer. He says it again when Alex forces him to drink a glass of water and eat an apple, taking off his shoes and socks as Jesus sits at his kitchen table. He says it one last time as pushes him flat onto the bed and spreads a blanket over him..

Eyes closing against his will, Jesus is asleep before Alex closes the door.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasha <3

Daryl jostles awake in darkness at the feeling of someone pulling a cover over him and shaking his shoulder lightly. He’s sprawled in the dirt, face resting on his arm, and he thinks vaguely as he fights his way up from unconsciousness that his hair might be damp.

“Shhh,” someone says, and his body relaxes with the feeling of safety a moment before his brain actually registers: _family_.

It’s Sasha. “You fell asleep after your turn digging. Rick tried to get you up and indoors earlier, but...”

Daryl forces himself to sit up. The windbreaker Sasha covered him with falls to the ground. “Everythin’ alright?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she sighs, and slouches to sit beside him. “It just started raining. Thought I should try to get you inside before you drown.”

“Right. Thanks.”

He’d fallen asleep against Hilltop’s outer wall, right by the freshly-dug graves. Sasha is right, they’re turning to mud in the light sleet that falls from a black sky. Others must have continued digging after he fell asleep, because all that remains of the stack of corpses is a row of neat little mounds of dirt. The smell of rain is a relief after breathing in smoke for hours.

His hand and shoulder ache something awful. The dislocated thumb seems to have been set alright, but he’d damn near peeled the skin off when he’d yanked the handcuff off in his rush to attack Boez. Digging graves had reopened a couple of the scrapes.

Sasha is staring at one of the crosses. Abraham is somewhere nearby, under one of these piles of mud. Glenn, too. The thought makes his throat hurt.

“What time s’it?” he asks, rubbing his eyes. “Ya need rest, too.” Hilltop’s grounds are nearly empty, though he can see an unusual number of guards posted on watch. Carl is up there, but he can’t find any other family nearby. Their absence makes his heart pound unpleasantly in his chest. He tries not to wonder where the fuck Carol is.

Suddenly he remembers that Rosita’s dead, too. He’d forgotten in the chaos.

“It’s late, close to morning. Rick and Michonne are in with Maggie, everyone else is asleep in the house,” Sasha says. “She hardly slept until she found out you were safe, you know. We were all so worried.”

Daryl looks away. “So why ain’t you asleep with the rest?”

“I slept a little earlier. They wanted me on watch all night in case the fire spread this far. Not that there would be a damn thing I could do about it if it did.” She looks up at the sky. “The rain will do more than that tiny firebreak would have. We’re probably out of danger—well, that particular danger.” Then she gazes at the cross some more, the second one from the left.

Finally he asks, “Is that... that him?”

“Yeah… Glenn’s at the end. Rosita’s on the other side.” She gives a choked little sob. “Then some of the Alexandrians, then the ones from Hilltop.”

“Hey now. Hey. Ya got that asshole.”

“Mostly thanks to Jesus,” she says, and he doesn’t know what she means. He hasn’t heard that part of the story yet.

So she tells him.

—

Sasha cries for awhile afterwards, grief and exhaustion pouring out of her. Daryl can’t find anything to say, so he pulls her tight to his side and rubs one of her shoulders gently.

Maybe half an hour later, she pulls away and wipes her eyes. “Get yourself inside,” she says, calm again, but instead he watches her walk back to the wall. She climbs up next to Carl, who pulls her into another hug.

None of them want to be alone just now.

Daryl isn’t alone, either. He contemplates the three crosses.

He can’t think about Glenn’s death yet. Tomorrow he’ll face it like a man, own up to it with Maggie. For now he avoids it in his mind like the edge of treacherous cliff—if he lets himself think about it, he’s not sure how far he’ll fall or what will be waiting at the bottom.

So he thinks about Rosita some, but mostly he thinks about Abraham some more. The man’s humor and his brass balls. He hears it yet again: _“You ever think about it, settling down?”_

They’ve lost so much in the last two days, and they’d almost lost a lot more.

A few yards away, a light flickers on in Paul’s window. Daryl stands and walks towards the trailer like it was some kind of prearranged signal.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because humans have limits, even Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t even get out of bed the first time he wakes up. He’s not sure how long he slept, but the trailer is cold and dark. His head hurts where Alex’s stitches hold his forehead together over his skull, but that’s not why he stays in bed.

He wonders where Maggie went. When he left for the Sanctuary, she’d been resting in his room. It feels like a decade has passed since then, but no—the woman _just_ lost her husband. He ought to get up and go visit her, bring her some flowers or ginger tea. (One of the few things he knew about pregnant women was that they were always nauseated.) Or if Maggie was asleep he should at least see what else he could do. Help treat the wounded and bury the dead. He’s being useless and he knows it, but he can’t bring himself to care—at least, not enough to actually move.

Apathy is rare for him, but he’s exhausted. The past two days hit him like a ton of bricks and he knows he desperately needs an escape from his thoughts, the circling images of Boez and the teenaged Savior and Gregory as a roamer and Hilltop’s people falling from bullet wounds all around him. Hell, even Negan makes an appearance, his brains splattering across Jesus’s chest.

Standing watch and digging graves won’t distract him, though. Fighting would, but if they were being attacked again he would have heard. All’s quiet at Hilltop now. Pathetically, he almost longs for it, the adrenaline and focus that fighting for his life would bring him.

The feeling of his thoughts spinning out of control is familiar, all the way back from when Jesus was a kid and the state took him away from his mother and put him in the group home. He’d worked so damn hard to stay with her, to keep anyone from looking at her too closely. When the people at school started calling him into the principal’s office over his dirty clothes and unkempt appearance, he stole some detergent from a neighbor and learned to do his own laundry. Every penny he saw, he picked it up for his mom, because he didn’t understand addiction but he knew she always desperately needed more money for _something—_ she talked about it all the time. He thought maybe he was helping with groceries, but food rarely materialized in their kitchen.

He’d tried so hard to help, but it hadn’t been enough. They took him away from her anyway.

The panic attacks hadn’t started until her first visitation at the home. He’d been so excited and anxious to see her again that he couldn’t breathe as soon as she walked in the door, the collection of pennies in his pocket jingling as his shoulders shook with sobs.

Later on he’d found coping strategies to keep himself calm: weed, liquor, and meaningless sex sometimes, but more often he lost himself in books and martial arts to divert his thoughts. He’s embarrassed that in the midst of all this danger, with Saviors chasing them and a battle looming, he’d reverted to something as stupid as marijuana to calm himself. If the Saviors had somehow found his safe house he wouldn’t have been able to protect himself, much less Daryl.

Christ, Daryl. Daryl wouldn’t be hiding away in bed, despite everything that’s happened to him, seeing his friends murdered and being kidnapped and bombing the Sanctuary from a helicopter like an action hero. No, Jesus is willing to bet the other man is still out there tirelessly digging graves or walking the walls, doing everything he could so others wouldn’t have to. He has more grit than anyone Jesus had ever met.

Thinking of Daryl (and yeah, ok, flirting with Daryl) had been a pleasant sort of distraction for Jesus in recent weeks, a kind of harmless fantasy, but now it just reminds him that Daryl had _seen_ —he’d been there to witness Boez degrading him. And he would be reminded of Jesus’s helplessness, his weakness, whenever their eyes met from now on.

Feeling selfish and bleak in equal measure, Jesus reaches into his bedside table and pulls out a flashlight and a book.

—

He drifts off again at some point, and wakes with his face smushed against the cover of _Of Mice and Men_.

It must be nearly morning. Jesus can feel the heavy sleep lingering in his body. He never sleeps this much anymore, and he’s not used to it; he’s slow and dehydrated. Groping at the bedside table in the dark, he snatches a steel canteen and takes some big gulps of water.

Hefting himself out of bed, Jesus switches on a light and struggles to orient himself. He’ll splash some water on his face and go find Rick, find a useful chore to help with, find _something_ to do that isn’t wallowing alone in his trailer.

Fuck it, maybe he’ll sneak out and scout the perimeter in case a big group of Saviors is biding their time, waiting for dawn to attack. Or he’ll see how much of the woods are still burning, how likely it is that the fire will reach their doorstep. Rick will be glad to have any report of the damage done.

Decided, Jesus reaches for his boots.

He startles badly when someone knocks on the trailer door, then immediately berates himself for being absurd—does he think the Saviors are going to fucking knock?

Daryl is standing at his door, pale and smeared head to toe with mud on one side.

They stare at each other for a moment. Jesus remembers vaguely that he’d offered to let Daryl stay with him if his family kicked him out of Alexandria. Now that Alexandria has been nearly destroyed, perhaps Daryl is here to take him up on his offer.

The thought almost makes him smile, in spite of everything.

Then Daryl shoves him through the door and slams it behind them. “Ya suicidal, or just plain stupid?”


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Differences of opinion.

“Ya suicidal, or just plain stupid?” Daryl spits as soon as he’s through the door.

Paul looks completely befuddled. He has a bright red crease across his cheek from sleep, and he grimaces and squints at Daryl like he hasn’t the slightest idea why Daryl might be pissed off at him.

It pisses Daryl off even more.

“Sasha just told me about your stunt, sneakin’ behind Negan in the middle of a crowd of Saviors where any one of ‘em could have put a bullet in your brain—so again, what kind of fuckin’ suicidal moron-”

Paul interrupts him, sounding patient and detached, and Daryl wants to punch him so badly. “You’re saying I should have been, what, more careful? In the middle of a battle, with Michonne’s life at stake? And I’ll remind you that _you were in a helicopter_ -”

“S’different and ya know it. I had backup.” Daryl gets in his face. “We had a plan, we agreed to do somethin’ and we saw it though. Didn’t just run into the middle of a fuckin’- a fuckin’ hostage situation, or, shit, volunteer to become Negan’s prisoner-”

“Now you’re complaining that I saved _you_?” Paul’s getting angry, and Daryl’s glad. He wants a fight. “I saved Michonne’s life, and I don’t regret it. I don’t regret saving yours, either. We won. I made the right call, both times. Let it go.”

“No,” Daryl replies flatly, folding his arms over his chest. “Someone’s gotta talk some sense into ya before ya ninja yourself into a fuckin’ early grave, and I don’t see none of your people here doin’ it, so I will.”

Paul blinks at him and says again, more slowly, “I saved Michonne. Your… your sister, or whatever. Why does it matter to you how I did it?”

Paul isn’t playing dumb, Daryl realizes. He truly doesn’t understand. “Folks ‘round here need ya alive. Do you get that? If you up and die on them-”

“Dying so they could be rid of the Saviors would have been worth it,” Paul says.

“Until the next assholes come along. We need people, good people, not more goddamn martyrs.”

That point must have landed, because Paul changes tack quickly. “You know, I’m flattered you care so much all of a sudden, but sleeping together _once_ doesn't give you the right to-“

"Ain't about… ain’t about that," Daryl growls, but he feels his cheeks heat, and suddenly he can’t meet Paul’s eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may seem ooc for Daryl... I promise I pull it together later. Or at least, I try to :-P


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More differences of opinion.

Jesus didn’t see it before, but he sees it now: Daryl is _weak_. He's too soft, too easily hurt. He gets too close, loves his people too much for the dangerous world they live in. It makes Jesus want to shake him, tell him to toughen up, remind him how much pain there is out there.

Then Daryl goes and ruins it with that blush.

Shit.

Apparently fucking in that safe house had actually meant something to Daryl, and now Daryl’s talking like Jesus is important to him. Only Jesus didn’t actually sign up for that. He can’t handle it. He’d just wanted to get laid and forget about his fucking damage for a night; he hadn’t wanted whatever this is.

It doesn’t matter that they’ve been flirting for weeks. It doesn’t matter that he likes Daryl, that he finds him attractive. None of that matters, because Jesus doesn’t want connections this close.

He doesn’t.

And yet he pulls Daryl close and kisses him anyway.

After a second it doesn't matter anymore why it’s happening, and that’s a relief. Daryl is devouring him, words forgotten between them. Jesus is shoved against a wall. Moaning, he wraps his legs around Daryl's waist as Daryl’s hands slide to his ass, holding him up against the wall for a moment before hissing and dropping him.

Right. Daryl’s hurt, his thumb dislocated and clumsily reset, because he’d had to escape a pair of handcuffs to rescue Jesus from Boez.

What a goddamn hypocrite.

"This ain’t why I came here," Daryl gasps out. He doesn’t step back, though, his whole body pressing Jesus against the wall.

"Shut up, shut up," Jesus gasps back, then makes him shut up by sealing their mouths together again, clenching a hand in his mud-streaked hair.

They’re both really gross. Jesus has the blood of half a dozen Saviors spattered over his shirt and Daryl’s been burying corpses in the rain.

He grabs Daryl’s belt and starts pulling him towards the shower.

It crosses his mind that this might be really fucked up. He’s using Daryl— _again_ —to forget his own issues for awhile.

It makes him feel like shit.

Not enough to stop, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Don't hate me. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator)


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The End.

It’s less of a blur this time. They’ve slept, they’re safe behind Hilltop’s walls, and they aren’t high as kites.

Even so, Daryl feels like his head is spinning.

They strip each other as Paul backs them into the trailer’s tiny shower, which… yeah, that’s a good thing. The water is lukewarm but Paul’s skin is dripping, his hair growing darker and heavier around his shoulders, so the temperature doesn’t bother Daryl much as he licks at Paul’s throat and grasps at his ass with his good hand.

They’d been fighting, he remembers, closing his teeth gently somewhere around Paul’s jawline.It was an important fight, Paul needs to _understand_ , he needs to not throw away his life on these fucking suicide missions he’s prone to taking-

Paul’s hand closes around his dick and he groans, pushing forward into it. Daryl rakes his nails down the smaller man’s back. His hair is in his eyes and that’s a shame, because Paul probably looks really fucking good jacking him off.

Christ, he ought to stop. This isn’t what he came here to do.

Paul twists his hand, tightening and loosening the grip at random, then lets go and says over the sound of the water,“Look at you. You’re gorgeous.”

Daryl’s breath punches out of him, along with any thought of stopping.

The shower stall fills with the scent of something masculine—pine, maybe—and then Paul is washing them both with quick strokes, hands slick with some kind of body wash. Daryl allows it, sparing a thought for how prissy this guy can be as a small hand roam his chest.

Paul’s stroking his own cock while washing Daryl’s chest. Maybe it’s some kind of cleanliness fetish.

“Yeah,” Paul says, “Love touching you.”

Daryl’s head spins faster.

He hasn’t done this much at all, but he _has_ had guys try dirty talk with him before. Hell, the guy who took his virginity, one of Merle’s buddies, couldn’t seem to get off without calling him a whore or a little bitch. That had never done shit for Daryl, though.

He’s not sure why it’s different with Paul, but it is. Every time the guy opens his mouth Daryl’s knees get weak.

Instead of fighting he rolls with it, getting to his knees in the small shower stall. His hands go to Paul’s hips, his toes touch the other side of the linoleum, and his knees are splayed on either side of Paul’s feet.

“Daryl,” Paul says quickly, but Daryl’s already got his dick in his mouth so the word ends in a loud gasp.

Hands land in his hair, and for a minute Daryl thinks he’s being fucking shampooed while he sucks dick. Fortunately Paul’s just touching, though. Daryl glances up, blinking water out of his eyes, and sees Paul looking down at him like he’s some kind of wonder.

Daryl’s dick throbs. He moves a hand there without really thinking about it.

“You get off on that, huh?” Paul asks, and Daryl feels a wave of embarrassment until he adds, “You get off on how good you’re making me feel?”

Fucking… _fuck_. Christ.

Daryl’s spends the next few minutes nearly choking himself, trying to impress Paul.

“Hey, keep touching yourself,” Paul says, hand petting somewhere near Daryl’s ear. Daryl realizes that at some point he’d moved his hand back to Paul’s hip so he could yank the man further into his mouth. “It’s sexy, I want to see it.”

If Daryl touches himself he’s going to come like this, on his knees with Paul’s dick in his mouth. He’d kind of rather have the other man’s hand on him again, but that’s not what Paul asked for.

Slowly, Daryl curls a hand around himself, tonguing over Paul’s dick as he does it. Paul groans like they’re in a porno, and Daryl has to close his eyes and will himself to calm down.

It doesn’t really work. Paul juts his hips forwards slightly and Daryl sucks, hard. The nails of his injured hand dig into Paul's ass.

“Oh, shit, Daryl,” Paul says, hand clenching in his hair. “Fuck, shit- no condom-” and he pulls out and comes across the side of Daryl's face.

Daryl barely hears him apologizing as he gasps and comes apart at the seams.

—

“It’s almost morning,” Paul says as they dry off. “I wonder if it will rain all day.”

Daryl is too cold to answer. Paul had insisted on shampoo after all (“You have come in your hair, Daryl, and God knows what else”) so the water had run cold by the time they made it out of the shower.

Besides, the guy is talking about the weather. Even Daryl knows that’s not a great sign.

“Want some breakfast?” Paul asks next, and Daryl eyes him edgily. He’s tense and talking fast as he yanks his wet hair into a bun on top of his head. “I have a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It’s one of the only things I hoard from my runs. Most of the cereal goes straight to the kitchen, but I love this stuff. It’s starting to go stale-”

“Paul,” Daryl interrupts, heart sinking.

Paul doesn’t turn towards him. “I have milk, though, from the- from the cows. That helps.”

“Paul. It’s alright.”

“What’s alright?”

“It’s… it was a weird, fucked up couple of days.” His throat hurts.

“Daryl…”

“Ain’t like I ever thought I had a real shot with you, man.” Paul is silent, and Daryl figures that’s all the confirmation he needs that this isn’t what he thought it was. He finishes pulling on his clothes quickly and hurries out into the main room of the trailer, embarrassed and hurt but not surprised.

He stops before he reaches the outside door. Something nags at him. He never did say his piece, and Paul really fucking needs to hear it. He’s not going to make it, otherwise.

Steeling himself, Daryl says, still facing the door, “Look, what I came here to say is that people… people give a shit, you know? Ain't just keeping you around for the supplies, or because you’re a good fighter.” His voice cracks. God _damn_ it. “Glenn tried to tell me all the time, and I guess I finally get it now. We can make it together, but we can _only_ make it together.” He takes a deep breath and forces himself to turn and look the smaller man in the eye. “So get yourself together and quit it with the stupid fucking stunts.”

Paul can’t meet his gaze for long. He shakes his head, leaning heavily on the bathroom door jamb. “I’m so unbelievably screwed up.”

“Everyone is,” Daryl says quietly. “Everyone who’s made it this long. Just… get your shit together. Talk to Maggie. And I’ll… I’ll be around.”

“Daryl…”

But he’s already stepped out into the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be an epilogue.
> 
> Also I’m pretty sure I’ve used the “Ain’t like I ever thought I had a real shot with you” line before in a different fic, but... fuck it. If I can’t even remember the fic then hopefully you won’t, either.
> 
> This is kind of my "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and I think some parts really dragged, so I'm going to go back and edit a couple of things out. I know I'm taking out the part about Gregory. If anything else felt... long, let me know :-P

**Author's Note:**

> The attempted rape is between Jesus and a random Savior. It's definitely graphic enough to be upsetting, but I didn't try to eroticize it. Hopefully that comes across.
> 
> The violence may also be problematic for some people, especially later in the fic. Don't read if you're sensitive to such things. Also... maybe don't watch the show if you're sensitive to such things, either :-/


End file.
